Silent Music
by By the Sounding Sea
Summary: Tori Vega is a new student at Hollywood Arts. She's friendly, kind, and incredibly talented. She's also profoundly deaf. Edited! Chapter 12 is almost completely new!
1. Welcome to Hollywood Arts

**So, for the last few months, I've been working on editing _Silent Music _while thinking about what I want to do for the sequel (which will definitely happen in the near future). If anyone has anything specific (or vague) that they'd like to see in the sequel, please PM me! (Oh, and I still don't own _Victorious_)**

**I hope you all enjoy the new and improved version of _Silent Music_, and the almost completely new chapter twelve! Enjoy!**

* * *

Hollywood Arts High School. The most elite performing arts high school in Los Angeles, where only the most talented teenagers in the city went to school. As I stood outside the front doors, staring blankly at the large brick building, I couldn't help but wonder how I, of all people, had been accepted to go to school among them.

My older sister Trina dragged me out of my rather self-loathing thoughts by tapping my shoulder. I immediately turned my head so I could read her pink-tinted lips.

"You nervous?" she said and signed to me.

"I've never been more nervous in my life," I told her, speaking and signing my words as well, as I always did with my family. When I was around people who didn't know how to sign, I usually just spoke, but every once in awhile, sign language crept in, like a reflex.

"Everyone's nervous on their first day," Trina assured me. "Trust me, Tori. You've got nothing to worry about. I know Hollywood Arts is a lot different than Davila, but it's still just a high school. Not to mention that I'll be here to help you if you need me, okay?"

I finally released the breath I had been holding from the moment I woke up. "Okay. Thanks, Trina."

"Sure. You ready to go in?" she asked me. After a moment of hesitation, I nodded. Trina opened the front door and walked into the building, with me trailing at her heels.

Trina walked through the lobby so quickly, I didn't have the opportunity to really observe anything until she stopped in front of the office door located in the hallway just off of the main lobby of Hollywood Arts. I was too busy examining a gray cinderblock wall with hundreds of names written on every inch to notice that Trina was talking to me until she tapped my shoulder to get my attention.

"Tori? Are you watching me?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm watching," I assured her with my hands and my voice.

"Good. This is the guidance counselor's office. His name is L-a-n-e," Trina said, fingerspelling the counselor's name. "He's going to get you settled in."

"I know what's going to happen, Trina. You and Mom both went over the whole thing with me five times last night and this morning," I reminded her.

"I know. I'm sorry. We're nervous, just like you," Trina said. "Are you ready?" I nodded. Trina knocked on the door to the office. A few moments later, a familiar man met us in the hallway. He looked younger than the average guidance counselor, but the kindness in his rich brown eyes had a way of instantly earning my trust.

"Good morning, girls," he said. "Do you remember me, Tori? I'm Lane, we met at your audition. It was a few weeks ago, so you might not—"

"I remember you. It's nice to see you again," I told him, never bringing my eyes away from his lips just in case he said something that I couldn't risk missing.

"I'm glad you remember me," he said. "I'd just like to say again how impressed I am with your abilities. The fact that you're so skilled, especially with your…What do you refer to it as? Your condition? Your disability?"

"I just refer to it as being deaf," I told him. "It's okay to say it. It's not a bad word."

"I'm sorry. We've never had a deaf student at Hollywood Arts before. It's all very new to us," Lane said.

"Well, I've never been to a hearing school before, so this is all new to me, too." That wasn't entirely true. I had gone to a hearing school for two years, but I just liked to pretend that those two years never happened.

"Well, I'll make sure to do everything I can to make the transition as seamless as possible for you," Lane assured me. He turned to Trina and started to speak again, but since I couldn't see his lips, I had no idea what he was saying. I was grateful when Trina started to sign his words for me. It didn't have anything to do with me; he was just asking Trina if she was going to go to class. Still, I like to know what's going on as much as any other person does.

_"I'm going to go to class now, Tori,"_ Trina signed to me without using her voice. _"You'll be okay with L-a-n-e, right?"_

_ "I'll be okay, Trina. Don't worry about me," _I assured her with my hands.

_"Okay. Good luck."_ She ruffled my hair slightly as she walked away. I brought my attention back to Lane, who looked incredibly confused.

"Beautiful language," he said with an awkward expression. I offered him a small, equally awkward smile. "Now, we've offered to bring in an interpreter for you. Your mother informed me that you are rejecting our offer. Is this true?"

"Yes, it's true," I confirmed. "As long as my teachers are facing me when they talk, I should be able to read their lips."

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want an interpreter? I imagine it would make things much easier for you," Lane said.

"I appreciate your concern, but I would really like to try to make this transition on my own," I said.

"Alright. If you change your mind, please let me know," Lane said.

"I will," I promised him.

"Well, I have your schedule right here. I was thinking that I could have one of the students walk you through it."

"Sounds good. Did you have anyone in mind?" I asked.

"I did. If you would follow me, please?" Lane walked ahead of me around the corridor back to the lobby. Lane walked at a much slower, calmer pace than Trina, allowing me to really observe my new surroundings.

This school was like nothing I had ever seen before. The amount of people was the first thing that caught my eye; the lobby was packed with students. The vivid colors were another thing that made Hollywood Arts different from my old school. The walls were painted as if the work had been done by the students themselves, with every wall a separate color and decorated with street art, sheet music, and paintings of dancers.

My favorite feature was the lockers. Every single locker was decorated differently to fit each student's personality. Most of them were covered with graffiti, but there was one that resembled a refrigerator, one with a painting of Shakespeare, one with baby bottle tops glued to the surface, and one that was completely covered in spoons. Lane brought me to a locker that was decorated with a piano keyboard and had five kids huddled together before it.

"Hey, guys!" Lane said to the group. They all turned to face him.

"What's up, Lane?" a tall boy with dreadlocks that went down to his chin asked.

"Everyone, this is Tori Vega," Lane said, indicating to me with his hands. "She's new here, and I was hoping you could make her feel welcome."

"Yay! I love new people!" a girl with red hair that was obviously artificial said while she bounced up and down excitedly, making it twice as difficult to read her lips.

"We'd love to," the kid with the dreads said with a smile before extending his arm to me. "Hey, Tori. I'm André."

"It's nice to meet you," I said, hoping my voice wasn't too soft or too loud.

"That's an interesting accent," a boy with long, dark hair commented.

"It is," said a boy with thick glasses, bushy hair, and, for reasons passing understanding, a puppet. "What is it, British?" I shook my head. "Swedish?" I shook my head again. "German? Something European."

"No. Nothing European," I told him. "I'm actually deaf."

And there it was. The dreaded "deer in headlights" expression that ninety-nine percent of the hearing people I meet give me when they first find out I'm deaf.

"What the hell are you doing here?" a sinister-looking girl with pitch black hair with blue streaks and an eyebrow piercing asked me.

"Jade," Lane said with a strict expression on his face. The raven-haired girl ignored him.

"I don't know if you couldn't tell by the words above the door outside, but this is a performing arts high school. That means singing and acting," she said to me.

"Actually, _Jade_,there are a lot of deaf actors," the kid with the dreadlocks whose name I was pretty sure was André said with the same stern face Lane had.

"And while she might not be able to sing, she _can_ play the piano," Lane told them. "Seriously, Tori is ten times better than a lot of professionals that I've heard. She's _incredibly_ talented, and she _definitely_ belongs at this school."

"Well, if she's got the talent, I say she's more than welcome," the boy with the long hair said. "Nice to meet you, Tori. I'm B-e-c-k."

I grinned when he fingerspelled his name for me. "You can sign?"

"Just the alphabet, and not very well. I'm actually surprised you were able to understand me," Beck said.

"Did you catch my name?" André asked me. "I know the alphabet, too. They taught us all in elementary school. I thought it was really cool, so I made sure I didn't forget it. My name is A-n-d-r-é."

"André," I repeated. His fingerspelling was much better than Beck's.

"That's it!" André said with a smile. He pointed at the kid with the puppet and bushy hair. "This is R-o-b-b-i-e." After he introduced Robbie, there was a moment when it looked liked no one was speaking, but by the way they were all looking at Robbie's puppet, I knew that there had to be something going on that I wasn't aware of.

"Sorry," André said. To whom, I wasn't sure. "And this is R-e-x, Robbie's puppet."

"What just happened?" I asked.

"Oh," André said, shaking his head. "Robbie's a ventriloquist. He makes Rex talk without moving his lips."

"I know what a ventriloquist is," I said, already feeling left out. There was an entire character in this group that I wouldn't be able to understand.

"We'll figure something out," André promised me before he moved his finger to the girl with the eyebrow piercing. "That's J-a-d-e." Jade made no acknowledgement. Not a smile, not a wave, nothing. André didn't look surprised as he moved on to the redhead. "And this happy little character is C-a-t."

"HI, TORI! IT'S SO COOL TO MEET YOU!" While I couldn't hear what Cat was saying, I knew she was screaming at me and speaking much more slowly than she would have.

"You don't need to scream at me. It doesn't matter how loud you talk; I still can't hear you," I told her.

"How'd you know she was screaming?" Beck asked.

"It's what _everyone_ does when they find out I'm deaf," I explained. "You don't need to talk any louder than you normally would in order for me to understand you. And as long as you don't talk really fast naturally, you don't even need to adjust your speed for me. Over the years, I've gotten _really_ good at reading people's lips. But I can only do it if you're speaking normally."

"Hear that, Cat?" Beck said. "You don't need to yell at her, but you might have to talk a little slower than you normally would."

"Oh. Okay! Sorry, Tori!" Cat said with a smile. I smiled back.

"So if you're deaf, what are those for?" Jade asked.

"What are what for?" I asked.

"Those." She walked closer to me and pointed at one of the silver hearing aids that went behind the outer part of my ear into the canal. They were old and dorky and I had been begging my mom for the kind that went completely inside the ear for years. "If you're deaf, why do you have these? Can you hear stuff with the hearing aids?"

"Oh. Those," I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious about my hearing aids. "They amplify sound, like a microphone. They helped me more when I was younger, before my hearing loss progressed. Now they help me with lip reading and give me sound awareness."

"Sound awareness?" Beck asked.

"When I'm wearing my hearing aids, I can faintly hear very loud noises," I began. "If an ambulance drove by, I would probably be able to hear it. Sound awareness helps me know what's going on around me."

"Weird," Jade said as she stepped away from me again. There was a pause for a brief second before everyone else in the hallway began to scramble towards classroom doors.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The bell rang," André explained. "That means class is starting."

"Perfect," Lane said. "André, you and Tori have almost identical schedules. I was hoping that you could show her around the school, eat lunch with her, make her feel welcome."

"I'd be honored," André said. "Come with me, Tori. I'll tell you everything you need to know about Hollywood Arts."

I smiled, linking arms with André. "That sounds great."

"Not literally," I saw Jade say. I shook off her snide remark and turned my attention back to André.

I had a feeling this was just the beginning to a wonderful friendship.


	2. Terrified Kangaroos

**Still love Sikowitz. Enjoy!**

* * *

"So, Tori," André said to me as he walked me down the hall to our first class, acting. "What school did you go to before you came here?"

"Davila. It's a school for deaf kids," I explained, focusing my eyes on both his lips and the path in front of me. Running into a wall would be a poor first impression, but so would appearing like I was ignoring him.

"Quite a change," Beck said. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were experiencing legitimate culture shock."

"It's very different," I admitted. "We didn't have acting classes at Davila. I've never even tried it before."

"It's loads of fun!" Cat gushed. "And our teacher, Sikowitz, is amazing!"

"I'm sorry. What's his name?" I asked, wanting to make sure I had understood her.

"Sikowitz. S-i-k-o-w-i-t-z," André said as he fingerspelled the man's name for me. "It's stunningly appropriate. The man's a lunatic, but he's still our favorite teacher."

"I see. I can't wait to meet him," I said as we all walked into a classroom. There was a slightly raised platform at the front of the room that I presumed was their makeshift stage. Four rows of yellow plastic chairs occupied the rest of the room. The walls were painted sky blue and had different masks hanging from them. Some of them were quite beautiful masquerade masks. Others were just plain terrifying, like the mask of a murdered man who still had a noose wrapped around his neck. Ignoring the more disturbing decorations, I sat in the front row of yellow chairs next to André. After we had been waiting for a few minutes, André tapped my shoulder.

"The bell just rang," he informed me.

"Oh. Shouldn't the teacher be here, then?" I asked.

"One would think. But Sikowitz is…special," Beck told me. "He always comes late."

"Why? What is he doing?" I asked.

"Probably getting high off coconut milk," Jade said.

"I'm sorry, getting high off _what_?" I asked, assuming I had misread her lips, or that coconut milk was some slang term that I wasn't aware of.

"I'll explain later. He's here," André told me. I turned around so I was facing the front of the room again and watched a barefooted man who honestly looked like a combination of a hobo and a hippie enter the classroom through the window holding a coconut with a straw coming out of it. Shame. I was really wishing that I had misread Jade's lips.

"Good morning, my little psychopaths!" he said. He seemed to notice me immediately. He took a few steps back, then dropped to his stomach and crawled closer to me before jumping to his disturbingly hairy feet again.

"Does everyone else see the Mexican girl sitting next to André?" he asked. The others all nodded. A smile spread over Sikowitz's lips. "Fantastic."

"I'm not Mexican," I told him. "I'm half Puerto Rican."

"Really? How fascinating. Nice to meet you, half Puerto Rican! They call me Sikowitz!" He grabbed my hand and shook it briefly, then dropped it back into my lap. "What planet do you hail from and what do they call you there?"

"Uh…" I looked at André, wanting to know if I had read his lips correctly.

"He wants to know what planet you're from and what they call you," he told me. I still couldn't believe that was actually what Sikowitz had said. I thought that André might be trying to trick me, but he couldn't have known what I thought he had said. I turned back to Sikowitz.

"Um, I hail from Earth and they call me Tori Vega," I told him.

"Oh, Earth? I hear it's lovely there this time of year," Sikowitz said. I glanced at André before I responded. He gave me a look that told me to just go with it. Before I could answer Sikowitz, he turned around and walked back onto the stage. "Drive-by acting exercise! You're all…" He turned his head to address the second half of the class. I strained my neck to read his lips, but it was too late. I had missed whatever he said. All I knew was that everyone in the class suddenly jumped up and started to hop around the room, making indistinguishable sounds with their mouths. I was too busy watching the others bounce around the classroom to notice that Sikowitz was standing in front of me, talking. André had to stop acting and come point him out to me. I turned around and faced my new teacher.

"Why aren't you acting like a terrified kangaroo?" he asked me.

"I-I'm sorry," I said timidly. "I didn't know what I was supposed to do."

"I said it very clearly, didn't I?" Sikowitz asked me.

"Maybe?" I said uncertainly. "It's just that I'm deaf, and—"

"What do you mean, you're deaf?" Sikowitz asked.

"I mean what I say," I told him. "I'm profoundly deaf. I can't hear anything. They said…They said that they told all of my teachers."

"How do you expect to perform in my class if you can't hear what's being said?" Sikowitz asked me while the rest of the class (excluding André) was still hopping around us.

"I-I figured I could just read the other students' lips during scenes," I said.

"Don't be so hard on her, Sikowitz," André said. "I'm sure she'll be great. Just make sure she's able to see your lips and everything will be fine."

"If you say so," Sikowitz said. "Tori Vega, the half Puerto Rican from planet Earth, I want you to get up and act like a terrified kangaroo."

"Um, okay," I said. André helped me out of my seat and we both began to travel around the perimeter of the room, hopping like terrified kangaroos.

I don't think I had ever been so confused in my life.


	3. Fluttering Hearts

My next class, theatre history, was pretty calm, which was such a relief after the chaos that was Sikowitz's acting class. My teacher, Ms. Glendale, had already been told that I was deaf, so she gave me a spot at the front of the room and made sure she didn't talk when her back was turned. The others might have liked Sikowitz more than any other teacher at Hollywood Arts, but for me, Ms. Glendale was the top runner for favorite.

After theatre history, André took me to the music room where the piano class took place. I had been looking forward to it all day.

"What's this teacher's name again?" I asked André as we waited for the bell to ring.

"Mr. K-i-n-g-s-l-e-y," André said, fingerspelling his name. "He's really cool. I'm sure you'll like him."

Just as André finished speaking, a man who I assumed was Mr. Kingsley entered the classroom from a closet. He stood in the front of the classroom and began to speak, so I figured the bell had rung.

"Good morning," he said to the class. He smiled when he caught sight of me. "You must be Tori! I heard you play at your audition. I've been wanting to introduce myself to you."

"It's nice to meet you," I said. He had been talking really fast, and I had gotten a little lost towards the end, but "It's nice to meet you" is always a safe bet when I'm first meeting someone and they haven't learned how to talk to me yet.

"I want to see what you can do, Tori," André said. "Go play something."

"I think that's an excellent idea," Mr. Kingsley agreed.

"Right now?" I asked, suddenly feeling extremely nervous. I had never played in front of more than the three people at my audition, and the class had eighteen kids.

"Don't worry, Tori. You'll be fine," André told me as he squeezed my hand. I took a deep breath before I nodded. I grabbed my bag, walked to the front of the room, and sat down at the grand piano. I got my own metronome out of my bag and put it on the ledge. That's how I keep time when I'm playing; I have a special metronome that uses a light instead of sound. I set the metronome, watched it for a few seconds, then started to play "Arabesque" by Debussy.

I tried as hard as I could to forget about all of the people staring at me, but for the first few minutes, it was all I could think about. I couldn't concentrate on the music at all, which is particularly problematic for a deaf musician. The pressure was on; I had to prove to these people that even though I couldn't hear, I could still play the piano. Unfortunately, I had no idea if I was succeeding. But once I was about halfway through the piece, I started to relax. I was able to focus solely on the piano. The people around me disappeared, and all that was left was me and the ivory keys.

When I finished the piece, I looked out at the class. They were just staring at me. I swear, I was about to start crying, I was so nervous for their reactions. Finally, André and Mr. Kingsley ran up to me, a grin stretching to the tips of their ears. They both started to speak, moving their lips at a mile per minute.

"…incredible technique…fingering…impeccable," I caught from Mr. Kingsley.

"…insane…never heard…good as you," I managed to get from André.

"Slow down, slow down!" I said. "I can't read your lips when you're talking that fast."

"I'm sorry," André said. "We said you're amazing!"

I let out a huge sigh of relief. "Really? It was good? I-I thought I messed up a few parts in the middle, and I stopped watching the light so I might have been going too fast and—"

"You weren't. It was perfect," André assured me.

"Really? You're not just saying that?"

"Not at all. You were fantastic." He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. The embrace was unexpected, but not at all unwelcome. I was delighted that André felt comfortable enough around me to give me a hug.

My delight only multiplied when I felt my heart flutter in my chest, and how great it was when I felt his flutter against mine.


	4. Lunchtime

After piano class, I had calculus, which meant I had to separate from André, since he was only in trigonometry. Still, he walked me to the classroom.

"This is your stop," he said as he stopped in front of the door.

"Thank you so much," I told him.

"No problem," André said. "So lunch is after this period. I was wondering if you wanted to eat with us."

"Absolutely," I said, grinning.

"Awesome. Do you want me to meet you here after so I can show you the way?"

"That's okay," I told André. "I'll have to learn my way around eventually."

"You sure?" André asked. I nodded. "Okay. I'll meet you in the Asphalt Café at noon. You just have to make it back to the lobby, then out the double doors to your left."

"Got it," I said with a nod. I gave André a little wave before I went inside the classroom and sat in the first row.

Calculus passed by quickly, and before I knew it, it was lunch time. I managed to find my way outside to the Asphalt Café easily. What was much more difficult was finding André and his friends. There had to be over three hundred kids out there, but André was nowhere to be seen. I eventually gave up and sat down at the first table I saw with the least amount of people already sitting at it. I timidly approached the table and sat down. The five kids gave me a dirty look, then grabbed their food and left. I looked around; everyone in the Asphalt Café was staring at me and whispering. It was times like that when I desperately wished that I could hear, not that I really needed to. I knew what they were saying. They were talking about the crazy deaf girl who decided to go to a performing arts school when she couldn't hear the world's loudest blow horn aimed directly into her ear, let alone the sound of her own piano playing.

I got my lunch out of my bag and stared at my sandwich. I had been starving just a minute before, but my appetite disappeared when those kids did. I waited for André or Cat or Beck or _anyone_ to sit down with me. But no one ever did. I looked up and saw more fingers pointed in my direction while their owners whispered to their friends, covering their mouths so I wouldn't be able to understand.

I had had enough. I grabbed my bag and stood up, leaving my untouched sandwich on the table. I rushed back inside the building, looking down at the ground so no one would see the tears that were quickly beginning to stream down my cheeks. Of course, one thing that's very important when you're deaf is to always watch where you're going, since you can't hear someone telling you to watch where you're going. I ended up running straight into a group of very large, very intimidating boys. I started to cry harder as they shoved me out of their way.

Once I was inside, I looked around for the bathroom so I could cry in peace, but the stupid maze of a school just kept leading me back to the lobby. Finally, I gave up. I sat down on the stairs, buried my face in my hands, and started to cry. After a few minutes had passed, I felt someone's arm wrap around my shoulders. I sat up and wiped my eyes. Once the excess tears were no longer blurring my vision, I saw André sitting next to me, looking worried.

"Are you okay? What happened?" he asked me.

"I made a mistake, André," I told him. "I made a really stupid mistake."

"What was your mistake?" André asked.

"Coming here!" I exclaimed. "I shouldn't have come here, André! I shouldn't have applied, I shouldn't have auditioned, and I shouldn't have been accepted! This is all so…wrong! I don't belong here! I don't belong in the hearing world! I belong with the other deaf freaks!" I had started to sign my words in angry, exaggerated gestures as I spoke them.

"That's not true, Tori," André told me. "You're wrong. I'm sorry, but you're so, _so_ wrong. I've heard you play. You're incredible."

"Really?" I asked, wiping my eyes.

"Really. Lane was right. You are so special and amazing. You _definitely_ belong at this school," André told me.

"Why?" I demanded. "Why do I belong here?"

"Because you're a phenomenal pianist."

"But _why_? You can't make such a strong statement without having something to back it up with," I insisted.

"Okay," André said, nodding. "How 'bout this? You belong here because I can't get that song you played earlier out of my mind. You belong here because when you were playing in class today, you had everyone mesmerized. You belong here because while you were playing, every single hair on the back of my neck stood up. That piece of music you played today was the single most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my entire life, and I've heard a _lot_ of stuff. That's why you're a phenomenal pianist. That's why you belong here. Does that answer your question?"

I nodded. "Yeah. It does."

"So you'll stay?"

I exhaled. "I don't know, André. But after seeing you say that…I think I'm more likely to stay."

André smiled. "Excellent. So, uh, what are you doing out here? What set you off? Something in calculus?" I shook my head. "Something at lunch?" I nodded hesitantly. "What happened?"

"Well, first, I couldn't find you," I began.

"I'm sorry. Our stupid trig teacher held us all after class 'cause we were texting each other complaining about what an idiot he is," André said. "I told him you were waiting for us, but he didn't care. I tried to leave anyway, but the asshole blocked the door. He's a big dude."

I smirked. "It's okay. But I sat down at a table, and the second after I did, the kids all got up and walked away. Everyone was staring at me and pointing and whispering. I guess I just got self-conscious."

"I'm sorry, Tori. I would have told them all to go screw themselves," André said. I wasn't entirely sure what that meant—sarcasm and most figures of speech don't translate well through sign language or lips alone—but I decided not to ask. I didn't want to look like an idiot.

"Well, thanks," I said, though I wasn't sure if I should be thanking him for a comment that seemed so crude. Screw meant sex…How do you have sex with…And why would you say that to…Ah, whatever.

"You're welcome. And by the way, I think sign language is the coolest language ever," André said, pointing to my hands. I hadn't stopped signing since I had inadvertently begun during my rant. It just made me feel more comfortable. Sign language was like my security blanket.

"Really?" I asked. "You don't think it's weird that I talk with my hands?"

"Not at all."

"Do you think it's weird that I'm deaf, yet my favorite thing to do is play the piano?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that," André said. "It's a little strange. But who cares?"

I put my hair in front of my face so he wouldn't see my blushing cheeks. "Thanks. That's—" I stopped talking and looked up when I felt the familiar sensation of stampeding feet run up to us. It felt like a herd of elephants, but it was really just Beck, Jade, Cat, and Robbie.

"There you are," Beck said. "We've been looking everywhere for you guys! Come on. Lunch is almost over."

"Do you want to go back out there, Tori?" André asked me.

"Yeah. I do," I told him, feeling more confident after everything he had said to me.

"Are you sure? You don't have to if—"

"I want to," I said firmly as I stood up.

"Alright," André said before he got back on his feet and led the way outside. Conversation seemed to stop when people saw me with them, but that could have been my imagination. We sat down at a table in the middle of the Asphalt Café. After the others came back from getting their food from a truck (which didn't seem very appetizing to me), we all started talking and had a great time. I barely even noticed all of the people staring at me.

Barely.


	5. Special

The rest of the day passed by without any major problems. After lunch, I had a screenwriting class with André, Beck, Jade, and Cat. That's the kind of class they took at Hollywood Arts as opposed to a regular English class, for which I was grateful. While I always got straight As, I never enjoyed English much. English was my second language, and I didn't like it _nearly_ as much as my first. Sign language is so clear, while the English language is so full of sarcasm and idioms and figures of speech. So many things that require one to be able to hear. However, this English class was nothing but writing, something I used to use as a creative outlet before I discovered the piano. Screenwriting wasn't nearly as bad as the literature classes we had to take at Davila. Shakespeare was my mortal enemy for three months last year while we were reading _Romeo and Juliet_.

At the end of the day, André approached me at my locker. He tapped my shoulder lightly to get my attention.

"Wanna hang out after school?" he asked me.

"Just you and me?" I asked him.

"Yeah. I invited the others, but Robbie has to fix his grandma's computer, Cat already said she'd go with him, and Jade's getting a new tattoo."

"And Beck?"

"Jade's forcing him to go with her. So yeah, just you and me. Are you uncomfortable with that?" André asked.

"No, no, of course not," I said. After what happened at lunch, it was clear to me that I was really in no position to turn down a friend. "But would it be okay if we go to my house? My mom's really nervous about me going to a hearing school again, and she wants me home right away to find out how it went."

"That's fine," André said. "You want me to drive you home?"

"My sister was going to drive me," I told him.

"You have a sister here?" André asked me. "Who is she?"

"Trina Vega."

"Trina Vega is your sister?" André asked. I nodded. "Man, I feel sorry for you."

I smirked. "She's not so bad at home. I'll text her and let her know that I'm going home with you." I pulled out my phone, sent Trina a text explaining that I was going home with André, then put it back in my pocket. André ushered me out to the parking lot. I got in the passenger seat of his car while he was climbing into the driver's side. I gave André directions along the way, and five minutes later, he was pulling into my driveway. I unlocked the front door and we walked inside. My mom must have been at work, because the house was empty when we entered the living room.

"Sit anywhere you'd like," I told André. We both ended up sitting together on one of the two red couches.

"You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but how did you…you know," André said, motioning to his ear. I knew exactly what he was trying to ask me, but I waited until he was actually able to say the words himself. He never was.

"How did I go deaf?" I said for him. André nodded, looking relieved. "When I was two, I was _really_ sick with meningitis. All of the doctors said I wasn't going to make it. Thankfully, I recovered, but I lost my hearing."

"That must have been devastating," André said.

I shrugged. "Not really. I mean, yeah, it was a bummer once I was old enough to comprehend what being deaf actually means. But I was just a baby at the time. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, but I can't imagine that it was very complex."

"I see," André said. He looked like he had another question, but he was hesitant to ask.

"If you want to talk about my deafness, it's fine," I told him. "I figure we might as well get it all out of the way now. Ask me anything."

"Are you sure?" André asked. "The question I have seems a little…insensitive or ignorant or…something."

"You won't be ignorant after you ask me the question," I pointed out.

"Okay." André sighed. "Why do you talk…the way you do? Wow, now that I hear it out loud, not only is that question insensitive, it's also _really_ stupid. You don't even know what I'm talking about since you can't hear yourself. You know what? Never mind. I take it—"

"It's fine, André," I told him. "The only way I know how to pronounce words is by the way I watch other people move their mouths when they say the same word. I've learned to speak by watching other people, not listening to them, so I have to guess what the word sounds like. Why do you ask? Am I hard to understand?"

"Yeah. You are," André said hesitantly. "Your…sound like…and you never pronounce…" I had missed half of his sentence. I don't even think he was saying real words.

"I'm so sorry. Could you repeat that?"

"I said your Ps sound like Bs, and you never pronounce Ss," André said, fingerspelling the letters I hadn't been able to understand. "Basically, you sound like you have a lisp."

I shrugged, trying to hide my embarrassment. Over the years, I've become very comfortable being deaf. Overall, I'm not ashamed of it anymore. But the one thing that still embarrasses me is my voice, which, ironically, is the one thing about being deaf that probably _shouldn't_ bother me since I can't even hear it. But it does.

"Hey, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable," André told me. "I'm sorry, Tori."

"It's no big deal," I told him, though it kind of was to me.

"Tell me about yourself," André said. "I don't want you to talk about your deafness anymore. I just want to know about you."

I smiled. He was the first person who had ever asked about me specifically. Not about my hearing loss. About _me_. "What do you want to know?"

"Can we talk about music?" he asked. I nodded. "When did you start learning to play the piano?"

"When I was six," I told him.

"Why?" André asked.

"Mostly because everyone else told me that I couldn't," I told him with my hands and my voice. "Trina was watching a video one day of this pianist, and when I saw it, I told her that I wanted to play, too. But she just laughed. I asked my mom and she said that deaf people can't play instruments. Every person I asked told me that I couldn't play because I can't hear. I begged my mom for weeks until she finally said yes just to get me to shut up. It took her a long time to find a teacher that didn't reject me the second she found out that I'm deaf, but once she did, I was thrilled."

"Were you, like, a prodigy? Amazing the second you tried it?"

"God, no!" I exclaimed, laughing. "Everyone said I was horrible! But I kept trying. My mom got me a keyboard for my room that I practiced on all the time. But everyone kept telling me how bad I was. That I should just give up because I would never be able to get it right. Not unless I could hear what I was doing wrong."

"So why didn't you quit? I probably would have," André said.

"I didn't quit because I didn't want them to be right," I told him.

"I think it's great that you were always confident in yourself," André said.

"I wasn't. After two months, I believed them. I actually believed that it was impossible. But I was too stubborn to give in."

"I'm glad you didn't," André told me. "If you had quit, you never would have come to Hollywood Arts, and I never would have met you."

I blushed. "That wouldn't have been such a loss."

"Now why would you say such a thing?" André asked. "Have you no self-esteem?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't see what makes me so special. I can play the piano. So can _millions_ of other people. I'm deaf. Again, so are millions of other people. Those are the only two things that make me unique, and they don't even make me that unique. I'm not as special as you think I am."

"Yes. You. Are," André told me, pausing between each word. "You are just as special as I think you are. Want me to prove it?"

"How?" I asked.

"Read my lips," André said. It only took me a second to figure out what he was doing.

He was leaning in to kiss me.


	6. Exhausted

I was freaking out. I had never kissed a guy before; I had no idea what to do. I liked André a lot, but I had only known him for a _day_. I didn't know what he was thinking. Still, I felt like I couldn't say no to him. I needed friends, and it looked like there were only five people who had even volunteered. Like I said, I was in no position to be turning any friendships down.

Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about whether or not I had to reject André. Just as he was about to press his lips against mine, the light above the front door began to flash. I gently pushed him away.

"Doorbell," I told him.

"I hear it," he said. "How do you?" I pointed to the light as I got up to answer the door. My mom was standing on the other side. She must have forgotten her key. She came in and started signing to me.

_"Thank God! Victoria Vega, do you have any idea how worried I was?! I kept texting you and you didn't answer! I called your sister and she said she didn't know where you are!"_

_"I texted Trina and told her that I was going home with A-n-d-r-é!"_

_ "Who's A-n-d-r-é?!"_

"Him!" I yelled, pointing at the couch. André gave my mom a little wave.

"You must be Mrs. Vega," he said. I thought I saw Mom correct him on her title, but it's really hard to distinguish "Mrs." and "Ms." through someone's lips. "Sorry. Didn't know. Uh, it's nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Nice to meet you, too," my mother said before she turned back to me and started to sign angrily. _"How could you get into a car with a stranger?!"_

_ "He's not a stranger! He's really nice!" _I insisted. _"And could you please not do this when I have a friend over? A FRIEND, Mom. I made a FRIEND."_

_ "Well, I guess I'll have to eat my words," _Mom signed. She didn't want me to leave Davila. She tried to convince me to stay by telling me that everyone at Hollywood Arts would make fun of me like before. It didn't seem like the best motherly advice in the world, but what do I know about parenting?

"Uh, if you guys need to discuss something, I can—"

"No," I said, interrupting André. "Come with me. We'll go to my room." I grabbed André's hand and dragged him up the stairs and down the hall to my room, closing the door behind me.

"Wow," André said as he looked around. "It's very…purple."

"My favorite color," I said.

"What were you and your mom talking about?" André asked me.

"Nothing. Stupid stuff. She can be very overprotective of me," I explained.

"I see."

"So…um…do you think we could maybe discuss what just happened?" I requested.

"Uh…yeah," André said as he ran his fingers through his dreads. "I'm really sorry about that, Tori. I don't…I don't know what came over me. You-You just seemed so sad and you were saying such awful things about yourself. I just…I wanted to make you feel better."

"Well, that's sweet," I said. "But…you're not one of those people who goes around looking for people who you think need to be saved, are you?"

"I'm…not sure what you mean," André said.

"Like, the kind of person who goes out and finds a prostitute on the street, then befriends her and makes her feel better about herself. She's not trash, she's just a regular person trying to make ends meet. You know what I mean?"

"Uh…I've never gone out searching for prostitutes, if that's what you're asking."

"It's not," I said, amused. "It's just…I've had people try to save me before. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that…I don't need saving. I don't need you to try to build my self-confidence by kissing me the day you meet me. People think that because I'm deaf, I must be…weak, fragile. Helpless. But I'm not. I've always been very independent. Sometimes I need people to repeat things, or I need someone to interpret for me. But for the most part, I'm able to get by on my own. I don't need people's help very often, and even when I do, I _rarely_ ask for or accept it. If I really need help, I'll ask for it. Okay?"

André nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry, Tori. You're obviously very independent. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I told him.

"Good. Why don't we just pretend that this never happened, okay?" André suggested. I nodded my agreement. Just after I did, my head started to pound. That wasn't a huge surprise; I got headaches a lot. I started to rub my temples to ease the pain.S

"Are you okay? You don't look so good," André commented.

"Fine," I told him. "I just don't feel well."

"Do you want me to leave so you can rest?"André asked. I silently nodded, forcing my eyes open so I could watch his lips. "Okay. I should probably be heading home soon, anyway." I walked him back downstairs and to the front door.

"Can I meet you at your locker tomorrow morning?" André asked me just before he left.

"Sure," I told him.

"Great. I'll see you then. Bye, Tori." André opened the front door and left, closing the door behind him. I turned around and saw my mother and sister staring at me.

_"How was your first day? Who was that boy?" _Mom asked me with her hands. I didn't answer her at first; my brain was too busy making the welcome switch from English to ASL.

_"Say that again?" _I signed, desperately fighting the urge to squint my eyes shut in a vain attempt to stop the jackhammer going off in my skull.

"Is everything okay?" Trina asked me through her voice.

"Fine," I told her. "Just…I'm just not feeling very well, that's all."

_"Do you think you have a fever?"_ Mom signed. She didn't speak to me very often. She thought that I couldn't really read lips, that I just faked it and was able to do it enough to get by (which was actually true to some degree, but I would never admit that to her).

_"I have a headache. I'm probably just tired,"_ I signed.

_"If you feel nauseous or if your ears start hurting, tell me,"_ Mom reminded me for the millionth time. Like my mom, I was prone to ear infections, but she grew out of it when she was a kid. I probably would have, too, but wearing hearing aids can make it easier for people to get ear infections, which is why I have them all the time.

_"I will,"_ I signed.

"You wanna watch TV? We'll turn on the closed captions for you," Trina offered. The complete opposite of my mother, Trina only signed to me when she could tell that I was upset, or if she wanted something from me. On some level, I appreciated that; it told me that she was confident in my lip reading abilities. On another, she knew that sign language was still my preferred method of communication, and she didn't use it very often.

"Maybe later," I said with my voice and my hands, pleasing both my mother and my sister. "My head hurts too much to stare at a screen."

_"Then why don't you come sit next to me? I've been dying to hear how your day went," _Mom signed. I nodded and sat down on the couch next to her. _"So? How was it?"_

"Exhausting," I told them. "I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life."

_"Were people nice to you?" _Mom asked.

"Some people were," I told her. "Most of them weren't."

_"I warned you, Tori," _Mom signed. _"I warned you about what happens to deaf kids in hearing schools. They're outsiders. Don't you remember how much those kids at Sherwood used to tease you before you moved to Davila?"_

I sighed. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Well, I had a great day," Trina said, then she started a long story about her friend Lindsey and how she had gotten a new dog, but the dog chewed up her new three hundred dollar shoes. I tried to pay attention, but I was so exhausted from reading lips all day, I didn't have the energy to read anyone else's. Lip reading is _exhausting_. You can't look away for a second, or you could miss a vitally important piece of information. Or you could miss "the," you never know. But it's not something you can risk.

"Could you please sign, Trina?" I requested, interrupting my sister in the middle of her story. "I've been reading lips all day. I can't do it anymore."

Trina gave me a familiar, sympathetic smile. She finished her story in sign language, but even then, I wasn't paying attention. I was too exhausted. I curled up against my mother and fell asleep.


	7. Bullies

I woke up an unknown length of time later to the familiar smell of rice, beans, and chicken wafting from the kitchen. I slowly sat up straight and stretched out my arms, then rose from the couch and headed into the kitchen. My mom was stirring a pot on the stove.

_"Hey there," _she signed to me. _"How do you feel?"_

_ "Better," _I told her. _"How long was I asleep?"_

_ "About two hours. I thought I'd make some rice, beans, and chicken for when you woke up."_

_ "Mom, we eat rice and beans and chicken at least three times a week. Don't you ever get tired of it?" _I asked her.

_"Hey, growing up in Puerto Rico—"_

_ "You ate rice and beans and chicken every single day. I know," _I signed with a smile. _"Where did Trina go?"_

_ "Where else? Off with some boy," _Mom signed._ "This one's name was H-e-n-r-y or H-a-r-r-y or something. Anyway, since it's just the two of us, I thought you could tell me more about your first day over dinner."_

_"I'm really tired. I was thinking about skipping dinner and going straight to bed," _I told her.

_"Tori, you can't skip dinner," _Mom signed with a stern expression. _"Besides, I've been dying to hear how it went!"_

_ "There's always tomorrow," _I pointed out, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, despite my two hour nap.

_"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?" _Mom asked.

_"I don't even have the energy to chew," _I signed. _"I'm just gonna take a shower and go to bed."_

Mom smiled. _"Okay. I'll be here watching TV for awhile if you change your mind."_

_ "Alright. Good night," _I signed.

_"Good night, sweetie." _Mom enveloped me in a hug and kissed the crown of my head.

After Mom released me from her embrace, I went up the stairs to my bathroom, shutting the door behind me before I turned the water on. I took out my hearing aids before I undressed, turned off the lights, and stepped under the stream of hot water.

There are few things I've found more relaxing than showering in complete darkness. A lot of deaf people I know are absolutely terrified of the dark. I understand why; it is scary, to be completely cut off from the two main senses. Then again, there's something about being completely cut off from the two main senses that makes me feel calm. It makes it really easy to either turn off my brain or put it in full gear, depending on what's going on in my life.

That particular evening was one of those times when I needed to just stop thinking for awhile and relax. So much had happened that day, and I was too tired to want to think about anything. I leisurely finished my shower before I turned off the water, wrapped a towel around myself, and stepped onto the lavender mat lying on the white tile floor in front of me. I walked back in front of the mirror, wiped the steam away, and flicked the light switch. I stared at my reflection for a minute, then opened my mouth.

"My name is Tori," I said to the empty room. What André had said earlier about my voice was starting to get to me. I wondered what I sounded like. I wondered how dreadful my voice actually was. Maybe people had as much trouble understanding me as I did understanding them. I sighed, finished getting ready, then crossed the hall and climbed into bed. I fell asleep the second after my head hit the pillow.

**XXX**

At seven o'clock the next morning, a vibrating pad strategically placed under my pillow shook me awake. I slowly opened my eyes and saw the flashing lights of my alarm clock. I groaned and blindly reached for the "off" button. The vibrations and lights both ceased. I felt around for my glasses and slipped them over my eyes before I rolled out of bed and walked across the hall to my bathroom. I quickly got ready for school and went down to the kitchen. Mom and Trina were already downstairs, eating waffles at the table.

"Good morning," I said and signed.

_"Good morning, sweetie," _Mom signed. _"I made some waffles for you, too."_

"Thank you," I said as I sat down at the table and started to pour syrup over my waffles. Just after I took a second bite, Trina waved her hand in front of my face.

_"What?"_ I signed, since I had food in my mouth.

"You ready?" Trina asked.

_"I'm eating!"_

"Should've come down earlier," Trina said. "Come on, we're gonna be late!"

_"We have plenty of time!" _I protested.

_"Trina, let your sister eat breakfast,"_ Mom signed.

"But I promised Lindsey I would meet her at her locker before school!" Trina said. I didn't have to be able to hear to know that she was whining. Her face said it all. I rolled my eyes and continued to eat my waffles while my mother and sister bickered.

Mom managed to keep Trina occupied long enough for me to finish the majority of the waffles. When only four bites remained on the plate, Trina grabbed my hand and dragged me out the door to her car. She put the keys in the ignition and pulled out of the driveway. Once we were on the road, she turned on the radio and raised the volume until it was almost all the way to the top. I smiled and rolled my eyes when I saw Trina dancing in her seat and singing along to the song. I closed my eyes and pressed my body against the door so I could feel the throbbing bass through the speaker.

I didn't realize we had pulled into the Hollywood Arts parking lot until Trina took the keys out of the ignition and the music came to an abrupt stop. I opened my eyes, got out of the car, and followed Trina into the building. She waved goodbye to me before she went to talk to her friends, and I went to get books from my locker. Just as I was about to shut the door, someone tapped my shoulder. Assuming it was André, I turned around with a smile. I was surprised when I saw a kid from my calculus class standing before me.

"Hey. I'm Rider," he told me.

"I'm sorry, did you say your name is Rider? R-i-d-e-r?" I asked him.

"Well, it's spelled with a Y, not an I, but yeah," Ryder told me.

"Oh. Well, it's nice to meet you, Ryder. I'm Tori Vega."

"Yeah, I know," Ryder said. "You're already pretty famous around here."

"I am? Why?"

"Because you're deaf," Ryder told me.

"I'm not that different from you," I said shyly, staring down at my feet. When I looked back up just a second later, I realized that he hadn't stopped talking. I immediately refocused on his lips.

"…introduce myself, 'cause, you know, you're new here, and it can't be easy, being the only deaf person," he said.

I shook my head. "It's not easy. Thank you, Ryder."

"Sure thing. I'll see you in calculus. Later, Tori." He smiled at me before he walked away. André approached me as Ryder was passing.

"Why were you talking to R-y-d-e-r D-a-n-i-e-l-s?" he asked, fingerspelling his name.

"He's in my calculus class. He just wanted to say hi."

André looked suspicious. "Okay. But you might want to be careful with him. Ryder Daniels really isn't the kind of guy you want to be involved with."

"We're not getting married, André," I said. "Forget about him. What's up?"

"I just wanted you to know that I have banned texting during trigonometry, so we'll be at lunch today," André told me.

"That's great," I told him. It's so hard to be teased without anyone's support. I knew having André and his friends by my side would make it a little easier.

"Are you worried about the kids making fun of you?" André asked, practically reading my mind.

"A little," I admitted.

"You're not going to be teased today, Tori. I won't allow you to be bullied again."

I gave André a small smile, knowing that I was going to be teased by the small-minded, intolerable idiots at Hollywood Arts. There was nothing André could do about it. "It's okay, André. I'm used to it."

"Hey, guys," Beck said as he and the others approached us. "Hey, Tori, we all wanted to come over to your house yesterday with André, but—"

"Don't worry about it. I wasn't feeling well, anyway," I told him.

"Hey, the bell just rang," André told me. "We gotta get going." He led the way towards Sikowitz's classroom.

**XXX**

Excluding the fact that _no one_ at Hollywood Arts other than André and his friends dared to approach me, the morning passed by without a problem. Even Sikowitz was learning how to talk to me, and acting class was starting to be fun. The only bad part was when I had to separate from André to go to calculus. However, I wasn't as alone as I thought.

I was sitting at my desk before class began, quickly filling in the answers to the previous night's homework that I hadn't gotten around to when someone waved his hand in front of my face. I looked up and saw Ryder Daniels standing before me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," I said, confused. "Listen, I really need to do this homework, so—"

"That's cool. I just wanted to let you know that you're really pretty." Ryder walked to his desk. I was shocked. No one had ever called me pretty before. I tried to forget about him and focus on math, but it was hard. I spent all of calculus thinking about Ryder's comment.

Once calculus was over, I went outside to the Asphalt Café. It was much easier to find André and his friends; they were sitting right in the middle of the blacktop. I approached them and sat down at their table next to André. The others were already eating pizza they had gotten from the Grub Truck. I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from my bag. Even though it's hard and kind of gross sometimes to read people's lips while they're eating, I was having a lot of fun with these people. For the first ten minutes, anyway. After the first ten minutes, I noticed that the others were staring up at a raised platform. There were five boys standing above us. Four were laughing hysterically, while one was talking, but he was too far away for me to be able to read his lips. However, based on the others' expressions, he wasn't saying anything nice.

"What's going on?" I asked. None of them answered me. "André?"

"Nothing, Tori," André said, shaking his head. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"You know that's the first phrase I learned to lip read?" I said. "I get it all the time. When I ask people to repeat what they said, something I've missed, I get that phrase. When people don't want me to know something, I get that phrase. When I miss the punch line of a joke that others have decided wasn't very funny, I get that phrase. But I want to decide what's funny or important or worth worrying about for myself. What's going on?"

André exhaled. "You know how I told you that no one would bully you again on my watch?" I nodded. "I'm glad you didn't believe me."

I nodded grimly. "What's he saying?"

"It's not so much what he's saying, it's how he's saying it," André said. "He's just talking. He's really not saying anything important. But…he's making fun of your voice."

"My voice?" I asked. André nodded. "Excuse me." I stood up and ran up the nearby steps so I was standing on the platform with the boys.

That was the moment when I realized that I was completely, utterly insane.

"What's up, deaf chick?" a terrifyingly large boy said to me. I was frozen. "What? You can't talk? You don't understand me? Of course not. You're too dumb."

That was the final straw. The boy's cruel words forced me to find some confidence deep, deep, _deep_ down inside me. I walked to the front of the platform so I was standing right in front of the boys and started to sign.

_"You think you're funny. You think it's funny to bully a deaf girl who no one gives a damn about. But someone does give a damn about me. His name is André Harris, and I want you to go down there and introduce yourselves to him right now. But I know you won't. You sick cowards are too afraid. And you should be. Because after what you just did, André will beat you all until you are nothing but a puddle of stupidity and intolerance left lying in the sun. And no one—not me, not André, no one—will lose a bit of sleep over it. You are weak and pathetic. But you know what? I feel sorry for all of you. Because while I might be deaf, at least I know I am a good person, something that none of you could ever be no matter how hard you tried. And I feel sorry for you."_

I lowered my hands and watched their reactions. The boys all exchanged a glance with each other, then turned back to me, snickering. Frustrated, I gave them the universal middle finger. _That_ finally silenced them. Satisfied, I calmly walked back down the stairs to the ground and sat at the table.

"What just happened?" André asked. "What did you say?"

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it," I told him. I picked up my sandwich and went on with my day.


	8. Coffee with Jade

The rest of the day went relatively smoothly. People were still avoiding me, but no one was teasing me to my face anymore. I take improvement where I see it.

At the end of the day, Jade approached me while I was getting books from my locker. While most people tap my shoulder to get my attention, Jade practically punched me. It did get my attention quickly.

"Hello," I greeted her.

"Hello," she said. I'm usually _really_ good at reading people's emotions through their body language and facial expressions—one of the benefits of being deaf—but Jade was a blank slate. "So listen—"

"You realize you just told a deaf girl to listen to you?" I asked.

Jade smirked. "Watch my lips. André and Beck want us to fight, and no, you did not just misread my lips. They actually want us to fight, and to prove it to you, they had me learn the sign for 'fight.' Wanna see?" She showed me a choppy version of the ASL equivalent of "fight." "See? So now we have to."

"I'm sorry, but I'm confused," I said.

"Happens to the best of us."

"No, I mean…why would they want us to fight?" I asked.

"Well, André says that since I hate people who I can walk all over, which I _absolutely_ do, you and I have to fight so you'll prove to me that you are not one of those people, and then I will magically like you. It's just how I operate," Jade explained.

"There are two different signs for the word 'fight.' One for a physical fight and one for a verbal fight. You showed me the sign for a physical fight. We're not _actually_ going to fight, right?" I asked, nervous about the idea of getting into a verbal fight with this girl. She would beat the crap out of me in a physical one.

Jade just smiled. "No, we are not going to physically fight each other, though if you're ever in the mood—"

"I'm okay," I said hastily. I thought for a minute, then exhaled. "Okay. So you and I are going to fight. Where? My house?"

"Your house? Oh, no. That won't do at all," Jade told me.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked.

"It's so…private."

"You want to have a fight in public?"

"You've never had a screaming match in front of a Starbucks while sipping coffee on a crisp autumn day?" Jade asked me.

"I honestly don't know if I've ever been in a screaming match before at all," I said. "Don't people stare at you?"

"Well, it wouldn't be fun if they didn't," Jade said. "Come on. We're going to my car."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To my car."

"No, I mean—"

"I just told you. Starbucks!" Jade turned her back me and started to walk out of the building. I sighed, slammed my locker door shut, and ran to catch up with her.

**XXX**

When Jade and I got to the Starbucks, the line was going through the door. I had no idea that so many people wanted caffeine so late in the afternoon. Since Jade was tapping her foot with her arms folded across her chest, I was thankful the line was moving relatively quickly. Five minutes after we arrived, we were at the front.

"What do you want, Tori?" Jade asked me after she had ordered her coffee.

"Tea, please," I told her.

"Tea? Seriously? You don't want coffee?"

"I don't like coffee."

Jade looked horrified. "Well, there's one thing we can fight about." She gave our names and some money to the cashier, who directed us to the other end of the store to wait for our drinks with a surprisingly graceful wave of his hand as opposed to a simple finger-pointing.

There are a lot of things I hate about Starbucks—the crowds, the fancy names for their products that I can't pronounce, the smell of burnt coffee that lingers with you all day long after being in the place for two minutes—but without a doubt, the thing I hate most is that they call out the customer's name when their drink is ready, and they say it so fast, I have never been able to read their lips. It's pretty much impossible for me to go to a Starbucks alone. And after Jade left to go to the bathroom, that's exactly what I was doing. I tried to concentrate on the man's lips, but he was talking way too fast and saying inscrutable words. I approached the counter and started to look at some of the cups for either Jade's or my name. The second after I picked up the first cup, a balding man who had to weigh five times more than my scrawny self ripped it out of my hand so hard, the lid flew off and hot coffee ended up all over me.

"Aw, that's just great!" the man exclaimed, rolling his eyes. He started yelling something about a refund while I tried not to cry. The cashier stepped out from behind the bar and tried to intervene, but the large man shoved him with so much force, he wound up lying flat on the floor. After he had dealt with the cashier, the man got right in my face and started to speak, but he was so close, my eyes weren't able to focus on his lips. I tried to push him away, but he grabbed my wrists. I honestly thought he was going to break them. Thankfully, Jade came out a second later.

"What…doing…idiot?!" I caught from Jade as she pushed him away from me and freed my arms.

"She was trying to steal my coffee!" the man said as if it were an excuse.

"She's deaf, moron! Don't you think it's more likely she was just checking the names on the cups?!" Jade told him. The man instantly backed off.

"She-She's deaf?" he asked.

Jade nodded. "Yeah. Now get away from her before I sue you. My dad's a lawyer." The man immediately ran away. Jade grabbed our drinks, two packets of sugar, and took me to an empty table outside.

"I shouldn't have left you alone in there. Are you okay?" she asked as she added the sugar to her coffee.

"Fine," I said, though that wasn't entirely true. I was absolutely humiliated.

"Come on. You're supposed to be showing me that you don't care when people are dicks to you," Jade told me. "I've been looking forward to this all day."

I smiled slightly. "Is your dad really a lawyer?"

"No. But he is a doctor and he has been sued a _lot_."

I laughed. "Well…thanks for standing up for me."

"Ugh, no! No mushy girl stuff! Come on! What are we gonna fight about?"

"Coffee versus tea?" I suggested.

Jade shook her head. "We'll fight about that on another day. We need to fight about something bigger right now." She thought for a few minutes, drank her coffee, and turned back to me. "I got it."

"What?" I asked.

"Beck was reading about this thing that they put into deaf people's heads that makes them able to hear. I can't remember what it's called…"

"The cochlear implant?" I suggested.

"That's it. Did you ever think about getting one?"

"Not me personally, really. My mom considered it for awhile."

"And she didn't do it?" Jade asked. I shook my head. "You've got a crappy mom!"

"Why would you say that?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't she want to give you the gift of hearing?"

"She wanted me to make the decision. She asked me if I wanted one when I was ten, and I said no," I explained.

"Then you're the crazy one," Jade said. "Why wouldn't you want to be able to hear music and coffee orders and that sound scissors make when you open and close them really fast?"

"Because I'm comfortable being deaf," I explained.

"None of that would have happened inside if you weren't deaf," Jade said. "You wouldn't be bullied at school if you weren't deaf."

"There's a lot of things that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't deaf," I said. "I probably wouldn't know sign language. I might not have had the determination to learn to play the piano. I wouldn't have been able to go to Davila. I wouldn't be part of the deaf community. I wouldn't be a part of the culture that I know and love."

"Oh, please," Jade said. "Nothing I can simulate with a three dollar pair of ear plugs can be called a culture."

"Yes, it can!" I protested, signing as I spoke. "We have our own schools, our own language! It's not a disability, Jade! It's just a different way of living! Hearing people always think that we all want to be fixed, that we're all miserable being deaf. But most deaf people, including myself, would much rather be deaf than hearing. I can't imagine living in a world that is never silent. It seems like it would really suck."

"You know I don't know sign language, right?" Jade said. I stared at her for a minute, then showed her the sign for "Up yours." "I actually know that sign, sassy."

_"Fuck you," _I signed angrily.

Jade shrugged. "Don't know that one, but I could probably guess." She stared at me for a long time, then smiled. "Congratulations, Vega. You have proven yourself worthy."

"Really? That's it?" I asked.

"If that was the sign for 'Fuck you,' yes," Jade said. "Anyone who's brave enough to say that to me when I'm being a bitch is someone I can be friends with."

I smiled. "Thank you, Jade." We both sipped our drinks as we watched the cars go by. Part of me wondered what they sounded like. Another part of me realized that it was just noise. Nothing interesting. Just noise. After a few minutes, Jade knocked on the metal table, sending vibrations to get my attention. I turned to her.

"Can I ask you something?" she said. I nodded. "I saw you talking to Ryder Daniels this morning. Why?"

"He's in my calculus class. He was just introducing himself," I insisted. "But…But he did call me pretty. No one's ever called me pretty before."

Jade shook her head. "He's not into you."

"What?" I asked, surprised.

"He's not into you," Jade repeated. "He's setting you up. He's going to ask you out, and then he'll do something bad. When he asks you out, say no."

"But…he's the first guy who's ever been interested in me," I said.

"That's not true," Jade said. "André met you first."

I was shocked. "What did you say?"

"Whoops. Wasn't supposed to tell you that," Jade said, but the smirk on her face told me that she wasn't sorry at all. "Yes, it's true. André likes you."

"André…André doesn't even know me," I said.

"And you think Ryder does?" Jade asked. She had a point. "André knows you a lot better than Ryder does. Not to mention the fact that André cares about you, and Ryder doesn't. He either wants something from you, or he just wants to humiliate you for sport. Trust me, Tori. You don't want to get involved with him." She turned away from me and started to drink her coffee again.

Things were so much simpler when I was invisible.


	9. Silent Screaming Match

The next morning at school, Ryder Daniels approached me at my locker again with a cunning smirk.

"Hey, Tori," he greeted me.

"Hi," I said, flashing a smile. "The bell's about to ring, so I kind of need to go."

"Then I'll be quick," Ryder said. "I was hoping you would go out on a date with me."

I was really excited for a minute and was about to say yes. Then I remembered what Jade and André had told me the day before. He doesn't like me. He just wants to humiliate me. But what if that wasn't true? Jade had told me that André liked me. Maybe he only told me not to go out with Ryder because he wanted me for himself, and Jade wanted to help her friend.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why, what?" Ryder said.

"Why do you want to go out with me?"

Ryder shrugged. "I dunno. 'Cause you're really pretty and nice and, from what I hear, extremely talented. You know, I've never had a girl ask me why I'm asking her out. They usually just say yes."

"I'm unique." I thought for a minute, then nodded. "Sure. I'll go out with you."

Ryder smiled. "Great. I'll take you to…at six tonight."

"You'll take me where?" I asked. Ryder repeated the word, but I still couldn't tell what he was saying. "I'm sorry, I can't understand you."

"Don't worry about it," Ryder said. "It'll be a surprise. So I'll see you tonight?"

I nodded. "Sounds good."

"Not literally, right?" Ryder threw his head back and laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had ever said (though Jade had already beaten him to that joke) before he winked at me and walked away. André came up to me just after Ryder left.

"You're talking to Ryder again?" he asked.

"He asked me out on a date," I told him.

"You didn't say yes, did you?" André asked, clearly upset.

"As a matter of fact, I did," I told him.

"Really?" André asked, his frown deepening with each word I spoke. "Where is he taking you?"

"I don't know," I told him honestly.

"He didn't tell you?"

"No, he told me. I couldn't understand him. I don't think it was English."

"Could it have been N-o-z-u?" André suggested, fingerspelling the word.

"I don't know. Why?"

"Ryder's family has invested so much money in that place, they practically own it. He'd be able to get away with anything there. Is there any possibility that he said Nozu?"

I shrugged. "I really don't know." I turned back to my locker. André tapped my shoulder. I rolled my eyes slightly before I looked at him. "What?"

"I don't want you going out with Ryder Daniels," André told me. I just laughed. "I'm serious, Tori! I don't want you going out with him!"

"André, how long have you known me?" I asked. He didn't answer me. "A week. You've known me for a week. I already went over this with you, André. I don't need a protector. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. If I want to go out on a date with a guy, then I will go out on a date with a guy. I don't need anyone's help."

"But Tori, he's—"

"Stop it! I like him!" I interrupted André.

"You don't even know him!" André stared at me for a moment, then exhaled. "The bell rang a few minutes ago. Why don't you and I get together at lunch and we'll talk about this some more."

"No," I said. "Ryder likes me, André. He thinks I'm pretty. He thinks I'm talented. And I'm going out with him." I slammed my locker shut and began to walk to class alone, trying to put the many warnings I had received about Ryder in the back of my mind.

Yet I couldn't help but wonder exactly what I had gotten myself into.


	10. A Disasterous Date

"Trina!" I yelled to my sister from the doorway of my room. She came out of her own room a few doors down and joined me.

"What's up?" she asked me. I held up two pairs of earrings.

"Which do you like better, the amethysts or the pearls?" I asked.

"Where are you going?" Trina asked me.

I blushed. "I have a date tonight."

Trina grinned. "Is my baby sister finally going on her very first date?"

"Shh! Stop it, Trina! Amethysts or pearls?"

"Who's the special guy?" Trina asked, completely ignoring my question.

"You probably know him. He's in your class. Ryder Daniels?"

Trina's face fell. "Yeah. I know him. Tori, what are you doing going out with Ryder?"

I shrugged. "He asked me and I said yes. Amethysts or pearls?"

Trina shook her head. "No. Nuh-uh. Tori, I know you feel like a dork because you're sixteen and you've never been on a date, but that does not mean you have to accept the first invitation that comes along."

"You, too? First André, then Jade, then André again, and now you. What's so bad about Ryder?" I asked my sister.

"Ryder isn't exactly Prince Charming, Tori," Trina told me. "He goes out with a girl, then he never calls her again. Not to mention that he's the biggest dick at Hollywood Arts. And with you…"

"With me, what?" I demanded.

Trina sighed. "I'm just saying…with you…he's got a lot of ammunition."

"Because I'm deaf?" I asked.

Trina hesitated for a moment before she nodded. "Yeah, Tori. Because you're deaf." I stared at my sister for a long time, then held up the earrings again.

"Amethysts or pearls?" I said.

Trina sighed, knowing I was going to do whatever I wanted to do. "Depends on how much attention you want to call to your hearing aids."

I touched my left hearing aid with my free hand. I hadn't even thought about that. "Are they noticeable?" Trina just shrugged. "Are they ugly?"

"You can't follow a conversation without them, so I don't think that really matters," Trina said. I knew she was right. "Go with the pearls if you want them to stay unnoticed. Go with the amethysts if you don't care."

I nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

"Sure. Good luck with Ryder. You'll need it." Trina went back to her room. I sighed as I put both pairs of earrings on my dresser before I stepped in front of the mirror and examined my reflection, wondering what, exactly, Ryder saw in me. It wasn't my generic brown eyes. It wasn't my huge cheekbones. It wasn't my long, frustrating, curly brown hair that went from smooth to frizzy in a matter of minutes. It certainly wasn't my scrawny, shapeless body. Why _was_ he attracted to me? Why _did_ he think that I was pretty?

_"Stop it," _I signed to myself. _"You can't think like that, Tori. Just finish getting ready and everything will be fine."_

Pushing aside my self-loathing thoughts, I grabbed the pearl earrings off of my dresser and carefully inserted them into the miniscule holes in my earlobes. The amethyst earrings were my favorite, but they weren't worth calling attention to my geeky hearing aids.

When people learn that I'm deaf, they automatically assume that I don't have any residual hearing whatsoever, but that's not the case. The meningitis destroyed ninety-eight percent of my hearing in my right ear, and ninety-five percent in my left. I know that doesn't seem like much, but trust me, it does make a difference. When I was four, my mom saw how difficult it was for me to follow a conversation, so I got my first pair of hearing aids. When the doctor turned them on for the first time, I cried, I was so happy. I could actually understand what people were saying. Most people don't know that only thirty percent of English can be seen through the lips. I can only understand thirty percent of what people are saying—I just pretend like I get more. With the hearing aids, it's more like sixty percent. They were a life changing experience, and even though I complain about them sometimes, I don't know what I would do without them.

Just after I was completely finished getting ready, Trina came into my room and told me that the doorbell was ringing. I ran downstairs and opened the door for Ryder, smiling at him.

"Hi, Ryder!" I greeted him cheerfully.

"Hey, Tori. Hey, Trina," Ryder said. I looked behind me and saw my sister glaring at Ryder. She didn't say anything to him.

"Let's go, Ryder," I said, shaking my head. So maybe Ryder hadn't acted like Prince Charming to every girl he had ever gone out with. He was willing to ignore my deafness and ask me out. I had to be willing to ignore the few mistakes Ryder was rumored to have made with other girls.

"Sounds good. Follow me." Ryder led me to his car and opened the door to the passenger seat for me. He got in the driver's side and drove us to a place called Nozu, just as André had guessed. When we walked inside, I was momentarily overwhelmed by the strong smell of fish and the bright, pink and orange neon lighting hanging on every single wall. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were the only people in the restaurant.

"Where is everybody?" I asked Ryder.

"Nozu doesn't open for another hour," Ryder explained.

"Then how—"

"My parents are good friends with the owner, Mrs. Lee. I convinced her to let us in a little early so we could have some privacy on our date," Ryder explained.

I grinned. "That's so sweet! Thank you, Ryder."

"You are more than welcome," Ryder said with a smirk. "Come on. Mrs. Lee set up my favorite booth for us." He took my hand and led me to a booth in the back of the restaurant. Ryder sat down first, leaving me the seat with my back to the door.

"Have you ever been here before?" Ryder asked me. I shook my head. "Best sushi in town. You'll love it." I smiled and looked back down at the menu in front of me. Just after I had decided what I was going to order, I felt someone breathing down my neck. I glanced up and saw that Ryder wasn't sitting in front of me. Suddenly, everything went completely silent. I could usually hear the very, very faint buzz of my hearing aids, but the buzzing was gone. I touched my ear and was horrified to find that my hearing aids were gone, too. I whirled around and saw Ryder standing behind me, my hearing aids dangling from his hand.

"…deaf…don't need…right?" he said as he walked around the table. I could barely understand what he was saying.

"Give them back, Ryder," I demanded. He just smiled.

"No…don't think…will," he said as he put my very fragile hearing aids in his back pocket and sat down. I winced; if they weren't totally crushed, they would be in need of serious repair.

"Don't you want me to be able to understand you? We are on a date."

Ryder laughed. "…think…real date? …told me you…smart…they…wrong."

"What?" I breathed. "Did you say—"

"Yes…said that! …isn't…real date! …sure I'll…having…fun…friends…here."

I was devastated. They were right. André and Jade and Trina. They were all right. He never liked me. I felt like crying.

"Just take me home, Ryder," I said, starting to stand up.

"Sit. Down." Ryder said the two words with an expression so stern, it would have been less terrifying if he had sprouted vampire fangs. I slowly sat back down for legitimate fear of my safety. He started to say something else that I couldn't make out, but based on his expression, he was trying to intimidate me, and even though I couldn't understand what he was saying, he was definitely succeeding, especially when I could have sworn I saw him say something about breaking a deaf girl's fingers.

"Hey! Over here!" Ryder started waving to some people behind me. I turned around and saw the five boys who were making fun of my voice at lunch walking towards us. They huddled around Ryder and started to plot. While they were distracted, I discreetly pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted André.

_Need help. At Nozu. PLEASE come._

I put my phone away just as they turned to look at me again. Ryder's friends grabbed my arms, ripped me from my seat, and started to lead me away. I asked where we were going, but I couldn't tell if they answered me; I couldn't see their lips. They ended up taking me out to the alley behind the restaurant. Once we were outside, the boys released my arms and shoved me to the ground. I hit my head on the concrete _hard_. When I opened my eyes, everything was a little blurry. I squinted at their lips to try to tell what they were saying. I could tell by their facial expressions that they weren't saying anything nice, so I lay my aching head back on the ground. I desperately hoped André had gotten my text. That he would come help me.

That he actually cared.


	11. Heroic Measures

For five seemingly endless minutes, the six boys huddled around me, talking incessantly. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but common sense told me it wasn't anything I wanted to know. My head was throbbing and I was starting to feel faint. Part of my wanted to pass out. Another part of me desperately wanted to stay awake. I had to wait for André. He was going to come. I knew he would come. I just had to wait.

Ten minutes after I had sent the text to André, I felt an enormous amount of vibrations shoot through the ground. I turned my head towards the origin of the vibration. A smile graced my face when I saw André bursting through the door. Without saying a word to Ryder or his friends, he ran over to me and helped me to my feet.

"Are…okay?" he asked me. I nodded silently. André hugged me briefly before he gently moved me behind him. He and Ryder started to argue. With my pounding head and lack of hearing aids, I wasn't even trying to follow their conversation. All I knew was that they were fighting, and they were fighting about me. I felt so guilty for putting André in such a terrible position. Finally, André gave Ryder the middle finger and turned to me.

"I…home," he said.

"You're taking me home?" I guessed. André nodded. "I need my hearing aids."

"Where…?" André asked. I just pointed at Ryder. He turned around and addressed Ryder again. Ryder brought my clearly damaged hearing aids out of his back pocket and dangled them in the air. André held out his hands, requesting that Ryder hand them to him. Instead, Ryder threw my hearing aids on the ground and stepped on them. That's when I actually started to sob. I _desperately_ needed my hearing aids to function. It was _impossible_ for me to live in the hearing world without them. Now they were crushed. So was I.

"…insane?!" André screamed at Ryder. They started to yell at each other again. Eventually, André seemed to notice that I was still crying. He turned to me and gently lifted my chin so I could watch his lips.

"Come with me, sweet girl," André said. He spoke so clearly to me, enunciating each word. I appreciated that more than I could say. André took my hand and led me through the restaurant and out to the parking lot. He helped me into the passenger seat, then got into the driver's side.

"I am taking you to the E-R," André told me, fingerspelling ER.

"I'm fine, André," I told him. André gently took my hand, touched my head with it, then brought it back down under the light. My fingers were covered with blood. "Oh." I sighed. "Fine. But I'll need an interpreter. They have them." André nodded before he pulled out of the parking lot and drove to the emergency room.

**XXX**

I ended up getting five stitches in my head. Ignoring my vehement protest, the hospital tried to contact my mother, but she wasn't answering her phone, for which I was incredibly grateful. The last thing I needed was her thinking that she was right, that my going to Hollywood Arts really was the worst thing in the world for me. If she knew that a night out with a fellow Hollywood Arts student ended with me getting stitches, she would have me back at Davila the next day.

I didn't talk at all while we were at the hospital; I remained totally silent, relying on the ASL interpreter the hospital had provided to speak for me. I never liked interpreters. They always seemed so overbearing to me, like they were taking away the independence I had worked so hard to establish for myself. But at the time, it was exactly what I needed: effortless communication.

After my head was patched up, André drove me home. Since there was a note from my mother on the coffee table saying that both she and Trina were going out, André offered to stay with me. I accepted his offer without a moment of hesitation. We sat on the couch together, his arm wrapped around me.

"Are you sure you are okay?" André asked me, speaking slowly and clearly. I nodded silently. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" I stared at him for a moment as tears welled up in my eyes. I quickly wiped them away. "You don't have to tell me."

"You were right," I said. "You and Jade and Trina were all right. I should have listened to you. I'm sorry I didn't. And I'm sorry we fought. You were just trying to help. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Tori," André said. "You've been through enough. But I do have to ask."

"Ask what?"

"I warned you, Trina warned you, even Jade warned you. But you still went out with him. Why?" André asked.

I sighed. "My entire life, everyone has always told me what I can and can't do. Mostly what I can't do. So now, whenever someone tells me that I can't do something, I automatically want to do it, just to prove them wrong. I usually just end up pissing a lot of people off."

André nodded. "I understand. And I want you to know that I'm not mad at you."

"I figured, since you came for me," I said. I looked down at the couch for a moment, then back at André. "Thank you for saving me."

"Don't worry about—"

"No. Seriously. Thank you," I said. "I don't know what Ryder and his friends were about to do, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been good. You saved me. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Tori. I'm sorry about what happened to you."

I nodded. "You know Ryder was the first guy who ever showed any interest in me? He even called me pretty." I sighed. "Most people refuse to see past my voice and my hearing aids. But I thought Ryder did." I chuckled. "I've always been a little jealous of my sister. You know she has a date _every single night_? It's because…when she meets a guy, she never has to worry about what her voice sounds like or whether he's freaked out by the way she stares at his lips the whole time."

"You wanna know something, Tori?" André said. "I never thought it was weird that you stare at people's lips while they talk to you. I never felt uncomfortable around you. I thought I would, but I never have. You're so independent. If you hadn't told us and if Jade hadn't pointed out your hearing aids and if you didn't have an accent, I'm not sure I would have known that you're deaf."

"Really?" I asked. "You mean that?"

"I really mean that," André told me.

"Well, I'll tell you something, too," I said. "I've never felt comfortable around hearing people. I've always been really awkward around them. But I'm different with you. I'm comfortable around you. I'm more comfortable around you than I've ever been around any deaf person."

"Really?" André asked. I nodded. He smiled at me. "You're more than pretty, Tori. You're beautiful. I wish I had built up the nerve to tell you that before Ryder did."

I smiled. "Did…Did you just say I'm beautiful?"

André nodded. "Yeah. I did. You're like no one I've ever met before."

"Because I'm deaf?" I asked.

André shook his head. "No. Not because you're deaf. Because you're beautiful and smart and kind and immensely talented. You're amazing, Tori." We stared at each other for a minute. Then, he delicately cupped my cheeks in his hands and leaned in to kiss me. This time, there was no hesitation on my part. I kissed him back. It was the smallest, gentlest, sweetest kiss in history and it took my breath away.


	12. Truth and Reconciliation

André and I continued to kiss, our passion quickly increasing until we both had to come up for air. I rested my forehead on his while we caught our breath. He pushed me away a bit so I could watch him talk.

"We shouldn't be kissing," he told me.

"What?" I asked. "Why not?"

"You…You went through an ordeal tonight," André said. "You're looking for someone to lean on, someone to make everything seem okay. And don't get me wrong, I am flattered that I'm that person. But if we're going to kiss…I don't want it to be because you're feeling…lost. If we're going to kiss, I want it to be meaningful."

"It was meaningful to me," I told him, shyly tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. "It was really meaningful, and not because of what happened tonight."

"Then why?" André asked.

I felt my cheeks turn red. "Because…Because it was my first."

André's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Your first kiss…ever?"

I nodded. "My first kiss ever."

"Wow," André said. "Well, I can't say that that was the first kiss I've ever had. But…it might have been the best kiss I've ever had."

"Really?" I asked with a grin. André nodded. "Must be because I spend so much time staring at your lips."

André laughed. "Yeah, you're probably right." He paused for a moment as a small smile spread over his lips. "You wanna know a secret?" I nodded. "When I tried to kiss you on the first day we met, it wasn't because you were saying bad things about yourself."

"It wasn't?" I asked. André shook his head. "Then why did you try to kiss me?"

"Because I've had a huge crush on you since day one," André admitted.

My jaw dropped in shock. "You have?" André nodded. "Why would you have a crush on me?"

"Because you're gorgeous, and you have one of the best personalities I've ever encountered," André said. "From the moment Lane introduced us, I was attracted to you, and I just couldn't stop myself from acting on it."

After contemplating his words for a few moments, a smile spread over my face.

"Well, I have a secret, too," I told him.

"What's that?" André asked.

"Maybe I have a crush on you, too," I said. André and I smiled at each other, not saying anything. After a few minutes, André's lips began to move.

"There's, uh…There's something I've been wanting to ask you," he said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Well…Well, there's this dance every year, the fall formal. It's at school and everybody gets really dressed up and we dance and play music and—"

"André, what's your question?"

"Right." He exhaled. "I was wondering…would you like to be my date?"

A wide grin immediately conquered my face. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. I felt him laugh before he pushed me back a bit so I could read his lips.

"Is that a yes?" he asked. I nodded vehemently. André laughed again before he kissed my lips.

I had never been happier than I was then.

**XXX**

From the very moment I was shaken awake by my alarm the next morning, my head was throbbing from the fresh stitches located about an inch above my right ear. I reluctantly rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom to choke down some ibuprofen to hopefully dull the pain.

But the pain was barely a concern to me. I was _much_ more worried about telling my mom that I needed new hearing aids. I had a backup pair that I had gotten when I was six, but when I tried them on the previous night right after André left, the way-too-small, Barbie-pink hearing aids had failed to do anything at all, even after I changed the batteries. I knew I would have to offer up an explanation for what happened to my old hearing aids before she took me to get a new pair. Unfortunately, I was failing miserably at coming up with a halfway decent story.

While I was waiting for the painkillers to kick in, I gingerly pulled back the hair behind my right ear and examined my stitches. They were so light in color, they seemed better suited for a vampire's skin tone; they stood out amazingly well against my tan skin and dark brown hair. I let my hair fall back and shook my head, wondering why I had let myself fall for Ryder's tricks.

I had never felt so stupid. Was I really so desperate to feel pretty and popular that I was willing to go out with a boy who I had been warned about so many times? Three very trustworthy people had told me not to go out with him. Why hadn't I taken their advice? I had never felt more embarrassed or more foolish in my entire life.

I was dragged out of my thoughts by my cell phone vibrating underneath my hand. It was a text from my mother, telling me to hurry up and come downstairs. I let out a heavy sigh before going downstairs in my pajamas.

_"Why aren't you dressed, Tori? You're going to be late for school," _Mom signed to me as I walked into the kitchen.

_"I…I have to tell you something," _I signed reluctantly. An expression of intense concern immediately overwhelmed my mother's face as she rushed to my side.

_"What's wrong, honey?" _she asked. _"Is everything okay?"_

_ "Not really." _I took a deep breath, then forced myself to just spit it out. _"Last night…I went out with…some people, and I sort of…lost my hearing aids."_

_ "How is that possible, Tori?" _Mom asked. _"How could you possibly lose your hearing aids? You only take them out when you're sleeping."_

_ "And when I'm in the water," _I signed, quickly improvising a story. _"We went to my friend Cat's house, and she has a pool. We were all going swimming, so I took out my hearing aids and put them on a table by the door. When we got out of the water, they were gone. We looked for them for over an hour, but we couldn't find them."_

_ "Tori, do you have any idea how much a pair of hearing aids cost?" _Mom signed to me with disapproval written all over her face.

_"Yes," _I signed.

_"How much?"_

_ "Twelve hundred dollars," _I signed reluctantly, staring at my feet. Mom stomped on the floor with her foot; the sudden, intense vibrations made me jump and instantly face her again.

_"Tori, I'm just a nurse. Do you think that I can afford to buy you new hearing aids in addition to the tuition for Hollywood Arts?"_

_ "I'm sorry. I know money is a little tight—"_

_ "Stop. Just stop." _Mom put her hands over her eyes, then rubbed her temples for a few minutes before she started to sign again. _"Go get dressed. I'll take you to the audiologist."_

_ "Okay," _I signed meekly, unable to look my mother in the eye. I felt her finger slip under my chin. She lifted my head so I could watch her sign.

_"I'm disappointed, Tori. You have to learn to be more responsible about these things," _she signed. _"Now go get dressed while I call the hospital to tell them I won't be able to work this morning."_

_ "I'm sorry," _I signed as tears began to collect in my eyes. Mom simply grabbed the phone and turned her back to me. I slowly backed out of the room and ran up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me. I slowly slid down until I was sitting on the floor with my back against the door. I buried my face in my knees and started to cry.

**XXX**

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting next to my still-furious mother in my audiologist's waiting room. She hadn't said a single word to me since I told her that I lost my hearing aids. I knew that if I told her the truth, she wouldn't be nearly as mad at me, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to admit how gullible I had been to my mother.

_"They called your name,"_ Mom signed to me after she tapped my shoulder to get my attention. I nodded and rose from the chair in unison with her. We headed back into the familiar office; we didn't even need the nurse to escort us to the fitting room, we had been there so many times before when I was younger. After the nurse left, my mom went back to giving me the silent treatment.

_"Will you interpret for me?" _I asked her. She only nodded. Neither of us said another word until my audiologist, Dr. Finlay, came in a few minutes later.

"Hey, Victoria!" he greeted me with a smile when he walked into the room. I smiled back, then turned to my mother for an interpretation of what else he had said. "Your mom says you lost your hearing aids?"

"Uh, yes, last night," I told him.

"She was swimming with some friends from her new school," Mom said and signed with a very displeased expression.

"Don't worry about it. Since you just got your hearing aids reprogrammed last month, all we have to do is make a new earmold and have you pick a color," Dr. Finlay told me through my mother.

"Sounds good," I told him. I watched Dr. Finlay as he put on his latex gloves, got out his little medical flashlight, and started to look in my ears. At this point, I knew what he was doing without him having to explain each step; he was checking my ears to make sure there wasn't too much wax in them before he started to make the earmold. I assumed everything was clear, because he didn't clean either of my ears out.

"I'm going to put the foam block in your ear canal so the impression material won't get inside it," he told me unnecessarily. I waited patiently as he put a tiny piece of foam with a string attached to it into each of my ears, then looked into each ear again with his flashlight to make sure there wasn't any gaps. He put his flashlight away, then moved over to the counter to mix the impression material. I watched as he filled an oversized syringe with the disgusting bubblegum-pink mixture, then moved closer to my ear.

"Hold still, Victoria," Dr. Finlay said just before he moved my hair back and inserted the mixture into my left ear. The cold, gooey material slowly filled my ear. He pulled back the hair behind my right ear a moment later, then said something to my mother while he put the impression material into my right ear.

_"He says you have stitches behind your right ear," _Mom signed to me. _"Why do you have stitches behind your right ear?"_

_ "It's nothing. I slipped and fell at the pool yesterday. I was bleeding a little, so A-n-d-r-é took me to the ER. They tried to call you, but you weren't answering."_

_ "I was working the night shift at the hospital. My phone was off," _Mom signed. _"Why didn't you tell me when I came home last night, or this morning? Why did you keep this from me?"_

_ "Because it's not a big deal! You don't need to freak out over every little boo-boo I get!"_

_ "When they require stitches and a trip to the emergency room, I do!" _Mom signed angrily.

"I have obviously gotten in the middle of something," Dr. Finlay said. "Uh, Victoria, the nurse will be here in a few minutes to remove the impressions and find out what color you want your hearing aids and earmolds to be." He quickly slipped out of the room, allowing my mother to sign overprotective questions to me, every one of which I ignored. Finally, the nurse entered the room and removed the impressions. I quickly told her I wanted clear earmolds and purple hearing aids so she would leave us alone.

_"Why won't you talk me, Tori?" _Mom signed to me as soon as the nurse left.

_ "Because my life is none of your business," _I retorted.

_"I GAVE you your life, Victoria!" _Mom signed, now furious with me. _"Please! Please tell me what's going on with you!"_

_ "I can't!" _I finally exclaimed. _"I can't tell you what happened!"_

_ "So you weren't swimming at Cat's house last night?" _Mom demanded. I turned away from her, feeling so ashamed. Mom frantically waved her hands in the air to get my attention again.

_"No,"_ I finally signed. _"I wasn't at Cat's house."_

_ "Then where were you?! Why would you lie about that?!"_

_ "Because I'm embarrassed!" _I told her.

_"Why, Tori? What were you doing?" _A strange look of realization and fear crossed my mother's face. _"Oh, Tori. You didn't…you know—"_

_ "What?! No! Who do you think I am?!" _I exclaimed, shocked that she would think I had spent the night losing my virginity.

_"I don't know! I just want to know who hurt my baby!"_

_ "I hurt myself!" _I told her. _"It's my fault! I shouldn't have gone, but I did! Everyone told me not to, but that didn't stop me. That's why I feel so stupid and so embarrassed. Because I ignored my better judgment and went out with a guy because I wanted to feel pretty and I wanted to feel popular and liked for the first time in my life!"_

_ "You went out with a boy last night, and he hurt you?" _Mom asked.

I nodded reluctantly. _"He pushed me down and cracked my head. Then he stole my hearing aids and crushed them."_

_ "Oh, you poor thing! Who was it? Was it that boy you had at the house?"_

_ "No! No, André saved me! I asked him to come help, and he did! I don't know where I would be right now if it wasn't for him," _I told her. Just as I finished signing, the nurse walked in with my new purple and silver hearing aids resting on a tray. I jumped out of the exam chair and ran out of the office to the bathroom down the hall. I rushed into a stall, sat down on the seat, and started to cry for the second time that day. A few minutes later, I saw my mother's familiar, sensible black shoes underneath the stall door. When I saw the walls of the stall shaking, I knew she was knocking on the door. I slowly stood up and met her outside. She held up my new hearing aids. I took them from her, quickly inserted them into my ears, and turned them on. Since the bathroom was so quiet, they didn't make much of a difference.

_"I'm sorry I got so mad at you," _Mom signed.

_"I'm sorry I lied to you," _I signed back.

_"You know, since he caused a physical injury, you could press charges against this mystery boy," _Mom told me. _"Does that interest you at all?"_

I vehemently shook my head. _"Not at all. I just want to forget it ever happened."_

Mom nodded. _"Okay. Come on. Let's get you to school." _She wrapped her arm around my neck and led me outside to the car.

Maybe it's geeky for a girl my age to say this, but…

I have a really cool mom.


	13. Dress Shopping

I arrived at school just before calculus was about to start. While I was getting my math book from my locker, Jade and Cat approached me.

"Hi, Tori!" Cat greeted me with a huge smile. "Oh, my gosh! Jade, do you see her hearing aids?! They're purple! That's awesome!"

"I see them, Cat," Jade said with a less than excited expression.

"Where were you this morning, Tori? André was looking for you," Cat informed me.

"I was getting my hearing aids. Did he say what he wanted?" I asked.

"Nope! Just that it could wait. Which is good!"

"Why is that good?" I asked.

"'Cause Jade and I are kidnapping you!" Cat told me with a wide, excited smile.

"Kidnapping me? Why? Where are we going?" I asked.

"André told us that he asked you to the fall formal!" Cat said. "So now that we all have dates, Jade said we should go shopping for dresses!"

"What about class?" I asked. I had never ditched school before.

"Do you really want to face Ryder, anyway?" Jade asked me.

"How did you—"

"Everyone knows, Tori," Jade said, interrupting me. "Ryder and his friends told everyone about what happened at Nozu."

I felt my cheeks burn. "Everyone?" Cat nodded as she touched my arm comfortingly.

"You still wanna go to class?" Jade asked. I thought for a few minutes, then put my calculus textbook back in my locker. "Smart choice."

"Come on, Tori! Let's go shopping!" Cat said before she grabbed Jade and my hands and dragged us to the parking lot.

**XXX**

Jade ended up driving the three of us to The Grove. As soon as we parked, Jade and Cat dragged me into Nordstrom and led me to the dress section. They both immediately dived into the racks. Cat's enthusiasm was expected, but Jade's surprised me. She seemed like the kind of girl who would rather die than go dress shopping, but she appeared to be having a lot of fun, pulling dress after dress off the rack.

While Jade was excited about the darker gowns, Cat seemed to have her heart set on a bright pink dress. I, on the other hand, was clueless as to what I wanted. I just stood idly, watching the girls. Eventually, Cat noticed that I wasn't looking for a dress.

"What's wrong, Tori?"she asked me.

"I don't know what to do," I said shyly. "I've never gone dress shopping before."

"What?!" Cat exclaimed, horrified. "Haven't you ever been to a dance before?!" I shook my head. Cat looked stunned.

"It's not hard," Jade told me. "We'll help you. What's your favorite color?"

"Purple," I told her.

"Yeah, the hearing aids should have been a clue," Jade said. "Come on. The purple dresses are over here." Jade led me to a rack exclusively filled with purple dresses. We sifted through them for about fifteen minutes until we found a beautiful, sleeveless, chiffon, baby doll dress that was a nice royal purple on top and faded to a soft lavender on the bottom _and _happened to be fifty percent off from thirty dollars. I ran into the dressing room and tried it on. When I came out, Cat began to jump and down as a small smile spread over Jade's lips.

"You look amazing!" Cat told me. "You're beautiful!"

"Really?" I asked as examined my reflection. I tried to read Cat's lips through the mirror, but I couldn't understand what she was saying. I turned to face her.

"Can you repeat that?" I requested.

"I said that André is _totally_ in love with you, and he's gonna be double in love with you when he sees you in that dress!"

I smiled as I turned to Jade. "What do you think, Jade?"

"You look nice," Jade said quickly. Her words didn't mean very much, but her slight smile meant the world. "Put your clothes back on and go look at accessories."

"I already have earrings," I told her, thinking of my favorite pair of amethysts. Sure, they drew a lot of attention to my hearing aids, but I loved them, and I knew that André wouldn't care at all.

"You should get a necklace, then!" Cat said. "Go on! They're over there!"

"You'll be okay by yourself, won't you?" Jade asked me, clearly thinking of how helpless I had been when she left me alone at the Starbucks.

I nodded. "I'll be fine. Thank you for helping me."

"Sure! Come on, Jade! We have to find dresses!" Cat grabbed Jade's hand and dragged her out of the dressing room. Before I went to the jewelry section, I changed back into my jeans and tank top, accidentally hitting the stitches with my hand as I was putting my shirt on. My head throbbed; I had to wait for the pain to disappear before I hung the dress over my arm and headed for the jewelry section of the store. After much searching, I ended up finding a beautiful necklace with two delicate gold orchids and amethyst accents. I fastened the jewelry around my neck and examined it in the mirror sitting on the counter. It was absolutely perfect. As I was admiring it, I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turned around and saw Jade and Cat standing before me.

"Jade and I found our dresses!" Cat announced. "We're gonna pull the car around while you buy yours, okay?"

I nodded and smiled. "Sounds good." Jade and Cat waved and left the store. I quickly paid for the dress and walked outside to wait for my friends.

After I had been standing outside for thirty seconds, I felt two large men grab my arms.


	14. Confrontations

I whirled around to face two huge strangers grabbing my arms. They were talking so fast, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. I looked around for Cat and Jade, but they were nowhere to be seen. I was starting to panic as I struggled against the two men's grip, but they wouldn't let go.

"I can't hear you!" I finally exclaimed. "Please talk slower!" The two men suddenly pulled their eyes away from my face and looked past me. I turned my head and saw Jade and Cat jumping out of Jade's car and running up to me.

"What are you doing?!" Jade demanded, as angry as she was at the Starbucks.

"The theft alarms went off when this young lady exited Nordstrom, but she didn't stop," the man on my right explained. I looked down and suddenly remembered the necklace. I had forgotten to pay for it.

"I…I didn't hear it," I whispered, feeling humiliated. I yanked my arms out of the two men's grasp, removed the necklace, and handed it to them. "I'm so sorry. I really didn't hear it."

"The alarms were blaring, miss. If you really didn't hear it, you might want to get your hearing checked," said the man on my left.

"Right," I said.

"Alright, she gave you the necklace back," Jade said. "Can we go now?"

"I'm afraid not," said the main on my right. "She has to be interviewed, paperwork needs to be filled out—"

"Yeah, yeah, my dad's a security guard, I know the drill," Jade said. I loved how she tailored her father's occupation to the moment's need. "Look, it's lunch time. Wouldn't you rather spend your break at Inside-Out Burger than questioning a couple of snot-nosed high school girls?" The two men exchanged a longing look. I knew they were going to let us go.

"Just don't let it happen again," the man on my left said before they walked away. Once they were gone, Cat enveloped me in a huge hug.

"We can't leave you alone for a second, can we, Vega?" Jade said from behind Cat.

"I guess not," I said with a sigh.

"Don't those store alarms usually have lights on them, too?" Jade asked.

"This one didn't," I told her.

"Why did you steal that necklace, Tori?" Cat asked me, her big brown eyes wide open.

"I didn't try to steal it," I told her. "I just forgot I had it on."

"Then why didn't you stop for the alarms?" Cat asked.

"She's deaf, Cat," Jade told her. "You do know what that means, don't you?"

"It means she can't hear people talking."

"It means she can't hear anything, Cat," Jade explained.

"That's silly," Cat said. "Of course she can hear things! She can hear music, can't she?" Jade shook her head. Cat slapped her hands to her cheeks in astonishment and turned to me. "You can't hear music, Tori?" I shook my head. "Oh, my gosh! That's so sad! I wouldn't be able to live without music!"

"You'd be surprised what you can live without," I told her. "I've lived with my whole world muted for fourteen years, and I can do everything you can do, can't I?"

"Well, you can't hear people talking and you can't hear music and you can't sing and you can't—''

"Yeah, thank you, Cat!" Jade said, quickly cutting her off. "Forget about her, Tori. We love our little Cat, but she's not very bright."

"I am too bright!" Cat protested, pointing at the glittery silver headband pushing back her fuchsia hair. "See my headband? It's bright and shiny!" Jade rolled her eyes and slapped the back of Cat's head. Her bright and shiny headband fell off her head and onto the concrete sidewalk. Cat grabbed it and shoved it behind her ears, smiling the whole time. Jade smirked, admiring her handiwork, before turning back to me.

"Come on, Tori. Put your dress in my car so we can get some lunch."

I smiled. "Sounds good."

"But not literally," the three of us said in unison. I put my dress in the trunk of Jade's car before we all walked to get lunch.


	15. Overcoming Differences

Later that afternoon after Jade and Cat had dropped me off at my house, I was practicing a piano piece my teacher had given me two weeks before, called "Gradas ad Parnasum" by Debussy. I had been practicing for almost three hours straight, and was becoming increasingly frustrated. The left hand is supposed to cross over the right during certain parts of the piece, and I was having a hard time with that. It was the hardest piece she had given me in a long time, and I was really struggling with it.

I kept my focus on both the sheet music and the metronome, moving my eyes back and forth every few seconds. I sighed when I realized that I was playing too slowly. I tried to pick up the pace, but I ended up stumbling over five measures. I groaned and angrily banged my fists on the keyboard before I rested my head on it. A moment later, I felt someone slide onto the piano bench next to me.

"Go away, Trina," I said, assuming it was my sister. "Can't you see I'm frustrated?" She tapped my shoulder, requesting that I sit up so she could talk to me. I rolled my eyes and sat up straight, only to discover that it was André sitting next to me, not Trina.

"Oh. Hi," I said, blushing. "How-How did you get in here?"

"I rang the bell and your sister opened the door," he told me. I had been so engrossed in the piano, I hadn't noticed his arrival. André leaned in and kissed me. "I liked that piece you were playing. What's it called?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I told him, shaking my head. André nodded, accepting this. "I heard you were looking for me today."

"How'd you hear that?" he asked me.

"I hear everything," I said. André looked at me quizzically. I smiled. "It was a stupid joke. But I don't even get a sympathy laugh?"

André smirked. "Seriously, how'd you hear that I was looking for you?"

"Cat and Jade told me," I informed him. "I came to school after I got my new hearing aids, where they promptly kidnapped me and took me shopping at The Grove."

"That was nice of them. Did you find a dress?" André asked. I nodded. "Jewelry?"

"I don't want to talk about that, either," I told him.

"Why not?" André asked, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

I sighed. "I found a _beautiful_ necklace. It was these two gold orchids with little amethyst accents. Anyway, I tried it on, but then I forgot about it, and I left without paying for it. The alarms went off, but since I couldn't hear them, two security guards had to stop me. I was terrified, André. They weren't wearing uniforms or anything, so I thought they were trying to kidnap me, and they were talking so fast, I couldn't understand what they were saying."

"You didn't tell them that you're deaf?"André asked. I shook my head. "Why not?"

"I try not to tell people when I can avoid it," I explained, speaking and signing. "The nice thing about being deaf is that it's practically an invisible disability. It's invisible up until you speak, sign, or can't understand what someone is saying. I've had thirty minute conversations with people before they mention anything about my voice and I have to tell them that I'm deaf. But then the second I tell them, the whole dynamic changes. They either immediately say goodbye or they…coddle me, I guess. They treat me differently." I looked away for a moment before I turned back to André. "I don't want to be treated differently just because I can't hear."

"Even if it could mean the difference between being arrested and being let go?" André asked me.

"_Especially_ if it could mean the difference between being arrested and being let go," I told him.

"Well, that's very noble of you," André said before he kissed me again. "I'm sorry that happened to you at the store."

"It is what it is. There's nothing I can do to change it." I sighed. "Listen, I'm glad you came over. There's actually…something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"I kind of thought that we should maybe talk about…us. You know what I mean?"

"Not at all," André told me.

"I'm just…a little worried about what other people are going to think about the two of us together," I told him.

"You mean…You mean because I'm black and you're Latina?" André asked.

I shook my head. "No, I'm not worried about that. I'm a little worried about the fact that you're hearing and I'm deaf."

"Why would you be worried about that?" André asked me as he brushed a stray lock of hair out of my face.

"You've never been made fun of for being different, have you?" I asked.

"I've been discriminated against a few times, but I wouldn't say I've been made fun of for being black," André said.

"Well, I have," I told him. "I have a _lot_. Practically every day of my life. I'm not going to lie and say that it gets easier over time. It doesn't. It really hurts, no matter how long it's been going on. To be made fun of because you wear hearing aids or talk like you have a lisp or just because you can't hear really sucks." I sighed. "I just…I just don't want you to have to go through the kind of torment that I've gone through just because you're dating me. Even Trina taunts me sometimes when she's mad at me. She'll put on a song, then tell me how good it is and say, 'Too bad you can't hear it.'"

"So give her the middle finger and walk away," André told me. "That's exactly what you should do when someone teases you about being deaf, and that's exactly what I'm going to do if someone decides to harass me about dating a deaf girl."

"You really don't care?" I asked him.

"I wouldn't say that I don't care that people tease you, and I wouldn't say that I don't care that it's possible that people might give me a hard time about dating you. But who knows? Maybe it will all end up being for the best, like the Ryder fiasco. If he hadn't chosen to be a jackass and humiliate you, we might not be together. We're going to be fine, Tori." André leaned in and kissed my forehead. "You don't need to worry about our relationship not working out just because you can't hear me talk."

"How about because I can't hear you sing?" I asked shyly.

"Don't be ridiculous, Tori. Of course that doesn't matter to me, either," André said.

"You're lying," I accused. "Please. If this is going to work, we have to be honest with each other. Don't lie to me just to spare my feelings, okay? Tell me the truth. Does it bother you that I'll never be able to hear you sing?"

André stared at me for awhile, then sighed. "Honestly? It does bother me a little. It's just…Music is such an important part of my life, and writing and performing songs is how I express my feelings. Normally I would write a song for my girlfriend, but for you…I can't do that for you."

"You can still do that for me!" I told him. "My ears might not work, but my eyes do. I know how to read. I would love if you wrote a song for me and showed me the lyrics on paper. And we can still talk about music, you know. I do play the piano."

"You didn't want to talk about it earlier," André pointed out.

"I'm sorry. I was just frustrated. You'll never understand how difficult it is to perfect a piano piece when you can't hear what you're doing."

André gave me a kiss on the cheek. "You're right. I'll never understand what it's like to live in a silent world. But I want to. I want to understand everything you have to go through. I want to understand you. And maybe I can even help you with that piece."

I smiled at André before I kissed him on the lips. "I'd really appreciate that."

For the next hour, André and I put aside our admittedly many differences and focused on what we had in common. A love of music.

And each other.


	16. Silent Music

On Friday night at 5:45, I was decked out in purple, sitting on the couch in my living room twiddling my thumbs and bouncing my leg nervously as I waited for André to pick me up for the fall formal. I had spent almost two hours getting ready, wanting to make sure I looked good for our first public appearance as a couple.

I jumped when I suddenly felt someone stomping the floor. I looked up and saw Trina pounding the floor with her foot so hard, I thought she was going to put a hole in it.

"Trina, how many times have I told you not to do that to me?!" I exclaimed. She knows how much it scares me. "Just wave your hand in front of my face or tap my shoulder like sane people do if you want my attention!"

Trina shrugged. "My way's more fun. Why are you all dressed up?"

"I'm going to the fall formal," I told her. Trina just laughed. "What's so funny?"

"No one goes to the fall formal without a date, little sister!" she informed me.

"I'll have you know that I do have a date!" I said, standing up.

"You do? Who?"

"My boyfriend, that's who."

Trina just laughed again. "_You_ have a boyfriend?"

"Yes!"

"_You_?!" Trina kept laughing. "Who is he? That imaginary friend you had when you were seven?"

"No! It's—" I was about to say André's name, but Trina interrupted me by pointing to the flashing light above the door.

"Doorbell," she told me. I nodded and went to open in. André was standing on the doorstep, wearing a black suit with a pink, black, and tan stripped tie and a broad smile.

"Hey, Tori! What's…Whoa," he said as he looked me up and down. I was wearing the form-fitting dress I had bought with Cat and Jade with simple black heels and my favorite pair of amethyst earrings. My long, dark curls were flowing freely around my pronounced cheekbones, with a few wispy pieces pulled back with a tiny jaw clip. I wasn't wearing much makeup; just some mascara, blush, and lip gloss. It was all very subtle, but I thought I looked pretty good.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah! Yeah, you look great!" André said.

"Are you sure? You don't think this dress is too short?" I asked.

"Too short? What's that?" André said. I laughed before he kissed me. After a minute, Trina pulled us away from each other.

_"A-n-d-r-é H-a-r-r-i-s is your boyfriend?" _she asked me in sign language. I nodded. _"How long have you been going out?"_

_ "About a week. Why? Does he have a terrible reputation, too?"_

_ "Hey, I was right about R-y-d-e-r."_

_ "I know you were. But if you're going to tell me that A-n-d-r-é is as bad as R-y-d-e-r, then I'm going to assume that you're just jealous of me."_

Trina rolled her eyes._ "Jealous? Of you? My deaf sister? Yeah, right."_

_ "I may be your deaf sister, but I have a date to the dance. What about you?"_

_ "Nice try, little sister. I'm skipping the fall formal so I can go glow in the dark mini golfing with M-a-r-k M-c-C-a-l-l-u-n, which is ten times better than some lame school dance!" _Trina exclaimed before she stomped away.

"Should I even ask?" André said.

"You really shouldn't," I told him, shaking my head. André laughed.

"Hey, I brought you something," he told me.

"Really? What?" I asked with a smile.

"Close your eyes," he instructed. I did as he said. A moment later, I felt someone breathing down my neck. After a minute, he tapped my shoulder, telling me to open my eyes. When I did, he was standing in front of me again.

"Look down," he said. I glanced down and saw the same necklace I had almost stolen from Nordstrom draped around my neck.

"You found the necklace?" I asked.

"I went to every store in The Grove looking for it," he said, nodding.

"Thank you so much, André! I love it!" I exclaimed before I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

"You're welcome, Latina," he said after we separated. "Come on! If we don't get going soon, we'll be late. Are you excited for your first dance?"

"Nervously excited," I told André as I followed him outside to his car, closing the front door behind me.

"You've got nothing to worry about, baby girl. Now come on. Let's have some fun." André took my hand and helped me into the passenger seat of his car, then got in the driver's side and began the five minute drive to Hollywood Arts. He parked in his regular spot and led me through the lobby to the Asphalt Café. The dance was already in full swing by the time we got there, with around four hundred people already present. The tables had been moved to make room for a temporary dance floor, and strings of tiny glittering lights were wound around every pillar in sight. A drum kit, an electronic keyboard, two electric guitars, and a bass complete with amplifiers had been set up on a large stage.

"Is there a band coming to play?" I asked André.

"No way. This is Hollywood Arts. We're our own band," he told me. "All of the music students play and sing at the dances."

"Will I have to?" I asked, my anxiety multiplying. I had never played with other people before. I didn't know how I would keep up with them.

André smiled at me. "I think they could make an exception for you. Come on. The gang's calling for us." He pointed in front of me at the rest of our friends shouting with their hands cupped around their mouths. André wrapped his arm around my shoulders and we walked over to them.

"You guys are so cute together!" Cat exclaimed before she threw her arms around me.

"Easy there, Little Red. I saw her first," André joked.

"Who's your date, Cat?" I asked.

"Robbie," she said simply.

"Robbie? Glasses, puppet, afro? _That_ Robbie?" I asked, my eyes wide.

"He's had a crush on Cat for _years_," Jade explained, rolling her eyes. "He _finally_ got the nerve to ask her out."

"What are we talking about?" Robbie asked as he joined us with two cups of ruby red punch held in one hand and his stupid puppet that I couldn't understand in the other.

"You!" Cat said with a smile as she took one of the cups from his hand. The puppet's mouth began to open and close. I sighed, frustrated that Robbie was so good at what he did.

"Remember what we said about Rex, Robbie," Beck said. Robbie hung his head.

"What did you say about Rex?" I asked.

"We told Robbie not to make Rex talk in front of you," Beck explained. "We know you can't understand 'him,' so it wouldn't be fair."

"I can't just make him not talk! He has a mind of his own!" Robbie exclaimed.

"Robbie, it's a puppet. It does not have a mind of its own," Jade said.

"Don't call him a puppet!" Robbie exclaimed before he stormed away. Cat ran after him.

"I swear, he's more sensitive than Cat when it comes to that stupid hunk of plastic," Jade complained. "Someday while Robbie is sleeping, I am going to drive to his house, sneak into his room, take my sharpest pair of scissors, and—"

"Jade, sweetie, do you really want to finish that thought?" Beck asked her. Jade contemplated this.

"Don't call me sweetie," she finally said. André and I smiled at each other as a girl with curly black hair approached us with a boy who I assumed was her date at her side.

"Hey, André, Beck, Jade," the girl said.

"Hey, Charlotte. Tori, have you met C-h-a-r-l-o-t-t-e?" André asked, fingerspelling her name for me. I shook my head. "She's really nice. Charlotte, this is my girlfriend, Tori Ve—"

"Girlfriend?" Charlotte's date asked. "André, you're dating the deaf chick?"

"Be nice, Nick," Charlotte scolded him. "André has every right to date whomever he likes. We don't even know her. I'm sure she's perfectly nice."

"Yeah, but…she's the deaf chick, Charlotte!" Nick exclaimed.

"You know, the deaf chick does have a name," Beck said without a trace of emotion on his face. "I'm sure _Tori_ would prefer to be called by that name than 'the deaf chick.'"

"She can't hear me," Nick said, waving his hand dismissively.

"No, but I can read your lips," I said. Nick's eyes grew wide, as if he was shocked that I was capable of speech.

"What's she saying? Her voice is hard to understand," Nick said. I blushed. That was why defending myself when people picked on me was hard. If I stood up for myself with my voice, people either made fun of that, or they couldn't understand my speech.

"She says you're an asshole, Nick. Get out of here. And take your little pet, too," Jade said, pointing at Charlotte.

"It was nice seeing you," Charlotte said, her face beet red with embarrassment, before she dragged Nick away from us.

"Don't worry about them, Tori," André said. "Don't worry about any of these people. Everyone at Hollywood Arts is very musical. They can't imagine what it would be like to be unable to hear music. But I'm sure they'll adjust to you. They just need time."

"You guys didn't," I pointed out. "You adjusted to me right away."

"We're more open-minded than most people," Beck told me. "But André's right. Just give it some time, and I'm sure they'll all see how great you are."

I smiled. "Thank you."

"Sure thing, Tori," André said before he pecked my cheek. "Oh, I gotta go get ready. I'm playing in fifteen minutes. You'll be okay with Beck and Jade?"

"Of course. Have fun," I told André before I kissed him. After a minute, we started to go a little too far, so Jade pried us away from each other.

"Get a room, you two!" she exclaimed.

"Aw, come on, Jade. Let them enjoy the honeymoon phase. Remember when we were in the honeymoon phase?" Beck said. A smile spread over Jade's face.

"Uh, I'm gonna let y'all reminisce about that without me," André said. He kissed me once more before he left to get ready for his performance.

"You'll be okay without us, right?" Jade asked me.

"What?" I asked, not wanting to be left alone.

"We were gonna mingle a little, but if you don't want to be alone, you could come with us," Beck told me.

"I don't know if you've noticed this, but most of the people at Hollywood Arts aren't very fond of me," I said. "You go on. I'll be fine by myself." I didn't want to spoil their fun by making them babysit me.

"Are you sure?" Beck asked. I nodded. "Okay. You should go check out the hot cheese fountain. It's good."

"Hot cheese?" I asked.

"Cheddar," Jade told me before she and Beck waved and went to socialize. I crossed the blacktop to the opposite side of the Asphalt Café where the food table was located. I watched the hot cheese fountain bubble for a few minutes before someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around and was horrified to find Ryder and his friends standing before me.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"So suspicious. I just wanted to return something to you." Ryder grabbed my fist and forcibly opened my hand before he placed my broken hearing aids in my palm.

"Is that it?" I asked after I put my old hearing aids in my bag.

"I hear you're dating that black dude," Ryder said.

"His name is André," I said stiffly. "I should probably go find him." I tried to walk away, but Ryder grabbed my arm and spun me around so I was facing him again.

"You know, you two really are the perfect couple," he told me. "You've got the handicapped freak and the Oreo."

"Oreo? Like the cookie?" I asked, incredibly confused. By the way Ryder and his friends were laughing, I knew that Oreo must have been an insult that I wasn't aware of, which made me ten times more furious. It was bad enough that he was making fun of me. I didn't want him making fun of André, too.

While Ryder and his stupid minions continued to harass me, I looked over Ryder's shoulder and saw Beck and Jade running up to us. I sighed. While I was thankful that help was on the way, a big part of me wanted the opportunity to fight my own battles. I didn't know if that opportunity would ever come along.

"Oh, look, here comes the cavalry," Ryder said when he noticed Beck and Jade.

"You okay, Tori?" Beck asked me.

"I'm fine," I told him. "Let me handle this, okay?"

"Are you sure? Jade was really looking forward to—"

"I can deal with him myself. Trust me," I said.

"Really? You think you can defend yourself against me?" Ryder asked.

I shrugged. "Why not? We're in a highly public place; you won't try anything physical here. As for the teasing, I think I have a sign even _you_ know."

"What's that?" Ryder asked. I stuck both of my middle fingers in his face. Ryder just stared at me, speechless, while his friends snickered.

"Dude, you just got told off by a handicapped chick," one of his friends said.

"Shut up, asshole!" Ryder said. I tried to keep a straight face as I walked away with Beck and Jade.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Beck asked once we were safely away from Ryder.

"I'm completely fine," I said.

"Are you totally sure? Because I've been looking for an excuse to beat the crap out of that bastard," Jade told me.

"Not today, Jade," I told her, smirking.

"André's about to go on. We thought you would want to watch," Beck told me.

"Of course! Do you know what song he's singing?"

"I think he's singing that song he wrote last year, 'It's Not Christmas Without You ,'" Jade said. "At the fall formal, everybody sings a bunch of Christmas songs, either covers or originals. You're lucky you're deaf, Tori. I get sick of all the Christmas songs _really_ fast."

"I'm not sure if lucky is the right word," I said, slightly annoyed at her words. "I think that seems fun. I've never seen André perform before."

"He's great, Tori. Easily one of the best musicians in this school," Beck said. The comment was clearly supposed to make me feel proud, which, of course, it did. But more than anything, it just made me sad. I wanted to hear my amazing boyfriend play, and it actually physically hurt to know that I would never be able to.

"Tori, he's on," Beck told me as he tapped my shoulder with one hand and pointed at the stage as André ran on. He stood in front of the microphone and the kids behind him began to play their instruments. After a moment, André began to sing. But he wasn't just singing. He was signing the lyrics to the song as he sang them. His sign language was nearly perfect; I knew that he must have spent _hours_ practicing it. I was able to understand nearly every word he was singing.

At the end of the song while everyone was clapping for him, André turned to me and held up the lexicalized sign for "I love you": the letters I, L, and Y combined together on one hand. My heart swelled as I held up the same sign. He ran off the stage and swept me into a giant hug.

"Where did you learn how to sign?" I asked him with a huge grin on my face. He put me down so I could watch him respond in English _and _sign language.

"I've been teaching myself sign language since the day I met you," he explained. "I'm not very good and I don't really have the grammar down, but I've been studying all sorts of websites. I figured, if we're going to be in a relationship together, I'm going to have to learn your language. I mean, we wouldn't be able to date if you only spoke Spanish and I only spoke English, right? We would both be struggling all the time. This is no different than that. I just don't see why should you have to struggle just to have a conversation with your boyfriend."

Tears began to collect in my eyes. "Thank you, André. I can't even begin to tell you how much this means to me."

_"You're welcome, T-o-r-i," _André signed before he kissed me. After we pulled away from each other, he started speaking and signing again. "I want you to sign around me all the time. That way I'll be able to learn the actual signs so I can stop fingerspelling every other word."

I smiled and began to use sign language as well as English. "No problem. Thank you again." I threw my arms around André's neck and wrapped him in another hug. With his large shoulders no longer blocking my vision, I could see Jade and Cat walking onto the stage and each taking a microphone off of the stand.

"What's going on?" I asked André. He turned around to see what I was looking at.

"They're singing 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,'" he explained. I looked around and saw all of the couples slow dancing while Jade and Cat were singing. André held out his hand to me. "Care to dance, Miss Vega?"

"You want to dance with me?" I asked, feeling anxious. André nodded, smiling. "But…But I don't know how."

"Nonsense. Everyone knows how to dance," André told me.

"Sure, everyone who can hear the rhythm and the beat of the music," I protested. "I have no idea what the song sounds like. How am I supposed to dance if I have no idea what the song sounds like?"

"You're a smart girl. I'm sure you'll figure it out," André told me. "Come on, Tori. It's a dance. We have to dance!"

"I don't…" I let my voice trail off as I stared at the ground. André gently lifted my chin and stared into my eyes.

"You don't what?" he asked.

"I don't want to embarrass myself," I told him shyly.

"I won't let you embarrass yourself," André promised me as he took my hands and pulled me close to him. He gently placed my arms around his neck before he wrapped his arms around my waist.

"Just follow my lead," he told me as we slowly began to move around the dance floor.

Dancing without music takes some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, it was actually really fun. André was a great dancer, and much to my surprise, I was doing okay, too. It didn't hurt that André was leading me flawlessly, making sure I was in time with the music. Once I was comfortable in André's arms, I closed my eyes, rested my head on his shoulder, and let myself imagine the music. I couldn't hear a single note, but I could feel it. The vibrations were a shooting massage. I was alone in not hearing the music, but it was like I was creating my own song. A song that had rhythm and texture and the most beautiful emotions known to man.

The music was silent.

But beautiful.


End file.
